Arrogance of the Children of Isra’il

by: Ayatullah Dr Sayyid Fazil Milani

In that book (Torah) we told the Children of Isra'il, "You are certain to become exceedingly arrogant and will establish tyrannical regimes on two occasions."
On the first, we fulfilled Our warning by sending an invincible force to overwhelm you, enter your dwellings and ravage your nation.
Later, we sanctioned your victory, extended your resources, increased your offspring and expanded your numbers.
(We gave you freedom of choice) if you do good, it is you who will reap its benefit, and if you are evil, it is you who will suffer its effect.
On the second occasion we fulfilled Our warning, and sent a force to defeat and humiliate you, to enter the Temple as your earlier vanquisher had before, and to lay waste all that was conquered.
It may be that your Lord will show you mercy, but when you return to disobedience His chastisement will follow. In the afterlife Hell will confine all those who reject faith.]
Quran Surah 17:4-8
The five ayat above illustrate how Allah presents the arrogance and mischief of the Children of Isra'il. He ordered them to follow His guidance in The Torah, the Divine book sent down to Musa. Instead, on two noteworthy occasions they deliberately rebelled against their Lord; behaved outrageously and arrogantly in the land, in the full knowledge that Allah had clearly stated that He would severely punish those who make mischief.
The above statement is confirmed by a recently published book on Torah and its commentary written by many Jewish professors in America titled (ETZ HAYIM) page 1375: (The land could not abide immoral behaviour. The previous residents were expelled because of their disobedience to God’s norms, and so would the land expel the Israelites were they to misbehave similarly.)
Allah explains in Ayah number 6 how, after He had abased and humiliated the Children of Isra'il, they repented and rectified their behaviour. It is a rule that those who do undertake good deeds benefit themselves, and those who commit evil harm themselves. It is apparent from ayah number 6 that the Children of Isra'il, having attained victory over their opponents, were released from captivity and further humiliation, to again gradually increase in wealth and offspring.
To obtain a clearer idea of the ups and downs of the Children of Isra'il, it is worth a quick search of such evidence in other references. The first of the severe chastisements mentioned, occurred after the reign of Solomon (Died circa 928 BC.) when the kingdom was split by the tribes who proceeded to wage war on one another. For half a century, the kings of Judah struggled to control the whole area. This so sapped the treasuries and depleted the resources of both Isra'il in the north and Judah in the south, that the Egyptian King Shishak was able to retain control over the major trade routes. When Isra’il was about to conquer Judah, its king sought assistance from their powerful northern neighbour, Aram ‑Damascus.
Thirty years later, once Isra'il had succeeded in winning back some of its lands, its king saw fit to join with (its former enemy) Aram‑Damascus, to forestall a greater threat from Assyria.
It is from that period of prosperity that the Prophet Elijah's rebuke still resounds. When a subject named Naboth refused to sell his vineyard to the king, the king's wife brought false charges against him and had him stoned.
In 633 BC, when the Assyrian King Ashur‑Banipal died, the Assyrian empire began to crumble and Judah again began to expand. Within twenty years, Isra'il and Judah had been united under one powerful ruler. Despite this, their two forceful neighbours, Egypt and Babylon, continued to try to overpower them. The Neo‑Babylonian ruler Nebuchadnezzar, conquered Judah in 597 BC, he exiled its aristocrats and craftsmen to Babylon and left his puppet, King Zedekiah, to rule. Ignoring all protestations from the Prophet Jeremiah, the king and subjects of Judah chose again to rebel.
That rebellion resulted in one city after another being sacked throughout Judah. Jerusalem, captured in 587 BC, was razed to the ground. The citizens who survived who were not farmers, were exiled to Babylon. Devastation was complete and the area remained in ruins for years.
In 332 BC Alexander the Great conquered Palestine. At his death in 323 BC, his leading generals, Ptolemy and Seleucus, struggled for control over the lands he had conquered. Ptolemy acquired Egypt, Palestine and part of Syria, a domination which lasted from 301 until 200BC when the Seleucid ruler Antiochus III (223‑187 BC) held mastery over the entire area. That kingdom ended when the last great Seleucid king, Antiochus Sidetes, died in 129 BC.
The Roman commander Pompey arrived in Syria in 64 BC, at a time of political instability in what was then referred to as Judea. It was inevitable that one or other of the disputing parties would sooner or later appeal to him for support. By 63 BC the whole of Judea had been absorbed into the Roman republic. Julius Caesar, who ruled there between 45 and 44 BC permitted the walls of Jerusalem to be rebuilt and restored the port of Jaffa to Judea. However, when the Parthians attacked the Romans in Syria, the Jews utilised the opportunity to revolt. Rome ultimately routed the Parthians and, in 37 BC regained Jerusalem. Even so, they took considerable pains to respect the religious feelings of the Jews and granted Agrippa, (Herod's grandson) great influence in Rome. They bestowed him with the title King Agrippa I and granted him the right to rule Judea until his death. (in 44 CE.)
By that time, a branch of the Pharisees had become a major force. They encouraged 'zealot' action with laments that Judea was now only one of many provinces under Rome and no longer the independent nation of 'chosen people'. They roused antagonisms about having a foreign army based on Judean soil; about Roman support for ethnic Greek and Syrian citizens; about being obliged to honour loan contracts and about being taxed by Rome. Zealots eventually set administrative archives alight to destroy loan contract evidence, terrorised the upper classes and waged guerrilla war against Rome.
In 67 CE Emperor Vespatian entered Galilee with an army. By 70 CE his son Titus had overcome Jerusalem and razed its temple, by 73 CE the final stronghold of revolt, Massada, fell to Rome and the whole area was under its control. Tens of thousands had been killed, tens of thousand taken captive and tens of thousands had been repopulated. Rome administered this area as all of its other imperial provinces and for the next sixty years tranquillity reigned.
However, a second revolt against Rome broke out in 132 and 135 CE when Emperor Hadrian decided to rebuild Jerusalem as Aelia Capitolina, to erect a temple to Jupiter and to institute anti‑mutilation laws forbidding circumcision. After rebels captured Jerusalem and destroyed a whole Roman legion, Rome responded by decimating 50 fortresses, 985 villages and killing 580,000 men, thereby ending Judea's era as a centre of Jewish population.
It would appear, that the first humiliating punishment and destruction referred to in the Quran, might allude to the years 597 BC when the Temple in Jerusalem was completely destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar and the second to the events of the decimation of 132 CE. However the arrogance, racial hatred, facistic national socialist attitudes and attempted genocide of the Palestinian peoples lead one to conclude that yet further destructive cleansing and humiliation of the Children of Isra’il is still due.
The New Testament scripture known as 'The Apocalypse' or 'Revelation', states that a final battle between good and evil will occur at Armageddon. The widespread apocalyptic devastation and annihilation prophesied is expected to be so decisive that no further conflict will be possible. (Revelations 16:14‑16). Harmageddon, the source of the word Armageddon and site of that battle, is a Greek translation of the Hebrew phrase, the mountain of Megiddo ­Har Megiddo which lies within the state of Israel. On contemporary maps Megiddo, which appears as Tel Megiddo, is located approximately 15 miles south of Haifa.
So powerful is that description that the words Armageddon and Apocalypse are sometimes used to refer to the 'end of the world'. There are said to be some 400 broadcasting stations in America that focus on Armageddon and, according to some reports, more than 60 million people who anticipate that this event is to occur soon.
A sequence of events linked to Jerusalem
YEAR , EVENT
3,000 – 2500 BC Canaanites migrate to Palestine
1,900 – 1850 BC The Prophet Ibrahim migrates from Ur to Palestine
1,720 BC The children of Yaqub ‑ Jacob migrate to Egypt from Palestine
1,304 – 1237 BC The reign of the Pharaoh Ramses II of Egypt in whose time the children of Isra’il left Egypt under the leadership of the Prophet Musa
1,010 – 791 BC The reign of Dawud as king over the children of Isra'il
597 BC Nebuchadnezzar conquers the kingdom of Judah and enslaves the children of Isra’il
539 BC The Persian Emperor Creusus conquers Babylon in Iraq and permits the Jews to return to Jerusalem to rebuild their temple
165 BC Jews in Palestine are forced to desert Judaism for Greek gods
70 BC – 476 CE The period of the Roman Empire
63 BC The Roman leader Pompey conquers Jerusalem and places Palestine under the Syrian Governor
66 CE The Jews rebel against the Romans
70 CE Romans conquer Jerusalem and disperse the population
135 CE Emperor Hadrian totally destroys Jerusalem to build an new city which he names 'Aelia Capitolina'
313 CE Emperor Constantine permits Christian worship throughout his empire
323 CE The Assembly of Nicea
324 – 638 CE The Byzantine era
326 CE
Queen Helena visits Jerusalem and build the Church of The Holy Sepulchre
527 – 565 CE
Emperor Justinian builds the famous 'Golden Gate', which remains known by that name to this day, and a Church on the site of the 'farthest mosque'
614 CE
The Persian Emperor Parvees conquers Syria and Palestine and demolishes many churches including the Constantine's Church of the
Resurrection
628 CE
Emperor Hercules's victory over the Persians and re‑conquest of Syria and Palestine
638 – 1099 CE
The Muslim period. This commences after the Caliph Umar enters Jerusalem.
1099 – 1187 CE
The Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem
1187 CE
Salah al‑Din defeats the crusaders and recaptures Jerusalem
1517 – 1917 CE
The Ottoman Empire controls Jerusalem
1917 CE
The Balfour Declaration, followed by General Allenby's entry into Jerusalem results in British occupation
1948 CE
End of British Mandate. The State of Isra'il proclaimed
13th December 1949
The City of Jerusalem is declared capital of the Isra’ili state
June 1967
Six Day War ‑ Isra'il occupies the West Bank
21st July 1967
Isra'ilis burn a part of the Al‑Aqsa Mosque
15th November 1988
The Proclamation of the State of Palestine by the PLO
18th October 1990
The Massacre of worshippers within Al‑Aqsa Mosque
2001
Genocide of the Arab population continues unabated
The Balfour Declaration
From the letter below, it is clear that Britain adopted the Zionist project and supported the establishment of a national home for the Jewish people in Palestine. However, it betrayed its promise of freedom and independence to the Arabs, under the leadership of Sharif Husayn, by dividing the areas of influence in Sham and Iraq between itself and France. Britain gained control of Palestine according to the San Remo Agreement (April 1920). It managed to include 'The Balfour Declaration' in the mandate for Palestine granted by the League of Nations in July 1922.
Foreign Office
November 2nd, 1917
Dear Lord Rothschild,
I have much pleasure in conveying to you, on behalf of his Majesty's government, the following declaration of sympathy with Jewish Zionist aspirations which has been submitted to, and approved by, the cabinet.
"His Majesty's government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non‑Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country"
I should be grateful if you would bring this declaration to the knowledge of the Zionist Federation.
Yours truly,
Balfour