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From: Eddie Chumney
To:      heb_roots_chr@hebroots.org
Subject: Chapter 8: Israel: The Fig Tree Blossoms (Part 1 of 3)


                                    CHAPTER 8

                    ISRAEL: THE FIG TREE BLOSSOMS


                      from the book by Eddie Chumney

              "RESTORING THE TWO HOUSES OF ISRAEL"

        
                  ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++


                                   CHAPTER 8

              ISRAEL: THE FIG TREE BLOSSOMS

                                  (Part 1 of 3)

After over two thousand years of exile in the nations of the world, the birth and blossoming of the modern day nation of Israel is a major end-time prophetic event given to us by the G-d of Israel. It is a sign to the Jewish people (house of Judah) and the nations of the world of the soon return of the Jewish Messiah (Mashiach) Yeshua/Jesus to the earth as the Kingly Messiah (Mashiach) known as Messiah ben David to usher in the Messianic Age (Athid Lavo). The prophets (nevi'im) of Israel in the TeNaKh (Old Testament) wrote how the birth of the nation of Israel, the return of the house of Israel and the house of Judah from worldwide exile to the land of Israel, and the nations of the world gathering against the city of Jerusalem (Yerushalayim) would precede the coming of the Messiah (Mashiach).

Israel is the fig tree of the G-d of Israel. In Hosea (Hoshea) 9:10 it is written:

"I found Israel like grapes in the wilderness; I saw your fathers as the firstripe in the fig tree."

When the Jewish Messiah (Mashiach) Yeshua/Jesus was asked by His disciples (talmidim) the signs that His followers could watch so that they would understand when the present age (Olam Hazeh) was concluding and the Messianic Age (Athid Lavo) was at hand, He prophetically made mention of the birth of the modern day state of Israel. In Matthew (Mattityahu) 24:3, 32-33 it is written:

"When he was sitting on the Mount of Olives, the talmidim [disciples] came to him privately. Tell us, they said, when will these things happen? And what will be the sign that you are coming, and the `olam hazeh' [end of the age] is ending? [Complete Jewish Bible version by David Stern] . Now learn a parable of the fig tree; When his branch is yet tender, and putteth forth leaves, ye know that summer is nigh: So likewise ye, when ye shall see all these things, know that it is near even at the doors."


A HEART TO BE REDEEMED FROM EXILE

Redemption from exile has always been the heart and desire of the Jewish people (house of Judah). The redemption from their first exile in Egypt (Mitzrayim) and the receiving of the Torah of the G-d of Israel at mount Sinai has been the central event that has helped to preserve the identity of the Jewish people (house of Judah) through later exiles to Babylon and eventually into all the nations of the world (Diaspora). While being in exile, the prayers of the Jewish people (house of Judah) have always been to return to the land of Israel, end the exile and live in the Messianic Age (Athid Lavo). This dream of restoration, the end of the exile and the return to the land of Israel is expressed in Psalm (Tehillim) 137:1 as it is written:

"By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion."


THE DESIRE FOR A POLITICAL MESSIAH

In the first century, the Jewish people (house of Judah) longed for a political Messiah (Mashiach)  who would free them from the oppression of Rome. Because of this desire, various Jewish groups rose up in opposition against Rome. Major wars were fought by the Jewish people (house of Judah) against Rome in 70 CE (Common Era) and in 135 CE. In 135 CE, a Jewish military leader named Simon Bar Kochba led a revolt against Rome. At this time, one of the most respected rabbi's of the period, Rabbi Akiva, proclaimed Bar Kochba as the political Jewish Messiah (Mashiach) who would free the Jewish people (house of Judah) from the oppression of Rome. During this time, Rome was successful in winning every war against the Jewish people (house of Judah). As a result, Rome began to sell the Jewish people (house of Judah) into slavery and initiated the exile of the Jewish people (house of Judah) into all the nations of the world.


PASSIVE RESISTANCE TO OPPRESSION

Because of the hardship brought to the Jewish people (house of Judah) in fighting against Rome,  losing the wars, being sold into slavery and being exiled into the nations of the world, the Jewish people (house of Judah) began to embrace the ideology of passive resistance against their oppressors from that time forward. This mindset continued to be prevalent in the late 1800s. In fact, many Orthodox Jews have long insisted that any return to the Holy Land would be carried out by the Messiah and that to take matters into one's own hands would be blasphemous. 1 However, anti-Jewish sentiment in Europe in the late 1800s began to change this mindset among secular Jews. This change in mindset and the desire for secular Jews (house of Judah) to return to the land of Israel to escape oppression and anti-Semitism without waiting for these matters to be carried out through the rise of a political Jewish Messiah (Mashiach) became known as the Zionist movement.


THE RISE OF ZIONISM IN EUROPE

"Zionism" comes from the biblical word "Zion." It is often used as a synonym for Jerusalem (Yerushalayim) and the Land of Israel (Eretz Yisrael). Zionism is an ideology that expresses the yearning of Jews all over the world for their historical homeland of Zion, the Land of Israel. The foundation of Zionism is rooted in the belief that the Land of Israel is the historical birthplace of the Jewish people (house of Judah) and that Jewish life anywhere else in the world is a life of exile.

The emergence of Zionism in Europe in the late 1800s was a crucial turning point in Jewish history. Through this movement, ancient hopes and dreams of the Jewish people (house of Judah) to end the exile and return to the land of Israel was resurrected. Zionism rejects the idea that assimilation of the Jewish people (house of Judah) into the nations of the world is the best way to ensure Jewish survival.

In the late 1800s, a grass-roots youth movement contributed to this Jewish awakening in Eastern Europe. 2 At this time in history, a large number of Jews lived in the Polish and Russian pales. Czarist policy aimed at restricting the Jews prompted "thousands of idealistic young Russian Jews" to organize themselves "into a political and cultural group called the "lovers of Zion." 3 These
youngsters held their first convention in Constantinople in 1882, boldly issuing a manifesto declaring their need for a Jewish homeland and their God-given right to Zion. 4


THEODOR HERZL: THE FATHER OF MODERN ZIONISM

Theodor Herzl is the man credited with being the founder of modern Zionism. He was born in Budapest, Hungary, in 1860. His parents, though Jewish, had no religious sentiment and young Herzl was educated in the spirit of the German-Jewish "Enlightenment" of the time. Theodor Herzl studied law at the University of Vienna. After graduating in 1884 with a doctorate in law, he left law and became the Paris correspondent for the Vienna Free Press, a liberal newspaper. During this time, Herzl became sensitive toward the Jewish problem of anti-Semitism.

In 1892, the famous Dreyfus trial began in Paris, France. Here, an assimilated Jew named Alfred Dreyfus on the French General Staff was wrongly accused and imprisoned. Herzl witnessed the riotous behavior of French mobs and the public humiliation of the Jewish officer, Dreyfus, when they taunted the French Jewish army captain with shouts of "death to the Jews." These events impacted Herzl so strongly that he became consumed with the desire for all Jews to have a national homeland to free them from social injustice and anti-Semitism. For Herzl, this meant a sovereign Jewish State. For the first time in his life, Herzl began attending Jewish religious services. 5

In 1896, Herzl began to communicate his dream by publishing Der Judenstaat (The Jewish State). More than any other single factor, Herzl's book was most responsible for galvanizing the support of world Jewry for political Zionism. His solution called for individual Jews to immigrate to Palestine, buy land from the Turks, cultivate it into productivity, build a Jewish majority in the land, and thus reestablish the Jewish homeland. 6

In 1897, Theodor Herzl called the first Zionist Congress at Basle, Switzerland. It opened on August 29th, 1897 and was attended by some 204 participants from seventeen countries. At this time, the World Zionist Organization was established and Herzl became its first president. Here he officially launched the Zionist movement with a specific statement of purpose: "The object of Zionism is to establish for the Jewish people a publicly and legally assured home in Palestine." 7

Initially, when Herzl began to expound his ideas of having a central world organization so that Jews  worldwide could move in mass to some yet unknown territory, he was met with stiff opposition from eastern European Jews who dismissed the idea and thought that Herzl was crazy. Both Orthodox and Reform rabbis branded Herzl and his ideas as visionary and impractical. Nevertheless, Herzl continued to pursue his dream and spread his ideas.

Herzl's greatest desire was for the Jewish people (house of Judah) to have a national homeland to shelter them from the anti-Semitism that they have historically experienced in the nations of the world where they have lived over the centuries. Therefore, it did not matter to Herzl which country or territory was given to the Jewish people. Herzl's energies seemed boundless as he assumed the role of roving ambassador for the Jews in the highest echelons of government. No confrontation fazed him. He fearlessly challenged opulent financiers; held audiences with the kaiser, the Turkish sultan, the king of Italy, and the pope; and approached leading officials of Russia and Great Britain. With his unique, polished demeanor he became a diplomat par excellence for the Zionist cause. 8

Herzl worked hard to find a territory for the Jews. At first, Sinai and Cyprus were two territories under consideration. In 1903, the British offered Herzl the area called Uganda. Because pogroms and oppression in Russia was increasing for the Jews during this period, Herzl felt that a homeland in Uganda was a credible proposal. Therefore, Herzl submitted the Uganda plan to the sixth Zionist Congress. However, this proposal met strong opposition and was rejected. The eastern European Jews regarded it as a betrayal of the dream of settling in the land of Israel. So strong and hostile was the opposition to the Uganda plan that Herzl wrote a written commitment to abandon it.

In 1904, Herzl died of a heart attack at the age of forty-four. For his efforts, Theordor Herzl became  a living legend and became known as the father of modern Zionism. 9


CHAIM WEIZMANN AND THE BALFOUR DECLARATION

After Herzl's death, the new leader of Zionism became Chaim Weizmann. Born in Motol, Russia in 1874, Weizmann attended college at German and Swiss universities. In 1904, he began teaching at Manchester, England. Unlike Herzl, Weizmann believed that a homeland in the ancient land of Israel was the only practical solution for the Jewish people. His reasons were not religious but were derived from his perceived political realities.

Just as Herzl's journalism caused him to be in the right place at the divinely appointed time, Weizmann's chemistry talents caused the same thing to happen to him. Because of World War I, Britain had a need that Weizmann was able to meet. When the allies' supply of acetone to produce munitions began to run out (previously imported from Germany), the British staff called on Weizmann to find some substitute. Following a two-year project, his team developed a superior synthetic that made a considerable contribution to the Allied war effort. 10

Weizmann's contacts with the Manchester society and his supervision of mass production of synthetic acetone for the Allies war effort gave him visibility and opened doors for him to make contact with high ranking British government officials. These contacts included Prime Minister Lloyd George, First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill, and Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour. Weizmann made personal appeals to these individuals to help him find a homeland in the ancient land of Israel for the Jewish people to further the cause of Zionism. 11

Weizmann's success in developing synthetic acetone for the Allied war effort so elated the British cabinet that Lord Balfour exclaimed to Weizmann, "You know that after the war you may get your Jerusalem." 12

The major result of Weizmann's diplomacy was the Balfour Declaration. It granted the Jewish people  (house of Judah) an international right to a homeland in Palestine with the help of Great
Britain. The substance of the Declaration was given in a letter to Lord Rothschild by the British Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour on November 2, 1917. The declarations reads:

His Majesty's Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavors 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 the existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.



WWI AND THE FALL OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE

One of the significant events that contributed to the possibility of the Jewish people returning to their ancient homeland was the defeat of the Ottoman Empire in WWI. Because of this, control of the Middle East came under the rule of Great Britain.

During World War I, Turkey was on the side of Germany. The British through the leadership of Sir Edward Allenby defeated the Turks and ended four hundred years of Turkish rule over Palestine and six hundred years of Muslim dominance in the area. The Palestine armistice was signed on October 31, 1918. This was eleven days before the World War I armistice was signed. 13 This coincidence prompted Lord Balfour later to declare that "the founding of the Jewish National Home was the most significant outcome of the First World War." 14

Oscar Janowsky has summarized this relationship between Zionism and World War I as follows: 15

The First World War proved decisive in the history of Zionism. On November 2, 1917, the British government issued the Balfour Declaration, pledging to facilitate "the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people." Soon thereafter the British conquered the country and, when the war was over, Palestine was administered as a Mandate under the League of Nations, with the United Kingdom as Mandatory or trustee. The Balfour pledge was incorporated in the terms of the Mandate, which recognized "the historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine" and the right to reconstitute "their national home in that country." Britain was to encourage the immigration and close settlement of the Jews on the land; Hebrew (as well as English and Arabic) was to be an official language; and a "Jewish Agency" was to assist and cooperate with the British in the building of the Jewish National Home.

The British Mandate was given international approval by the Council of the League of Nations on June 28, 1919. The following map  shows the land area in the Middle East governed by the British Mandate.

However, before its final sanction on September 29, 1922, the homeland projected for the Jews had been reduced to exclude Transjordan when Great Britain created the state of Transjordan under the kingship of Abdullah ibn Hussein. 16 The following map shows how the land of the Middle East looked after Great Britain gave the land that was originally projected to be a national homeland for the Jewish people to Transjordan. In order to satisfy the Arabs, "land was given for peace."

What Theodor Herzl invigorated in the Jewish people for a national homeland with the writing of his book, Der Judenstaat (The Jewish State), Chaim Weizmann continued with the Balfour Declaration. With the defeat of the Ottoman Empire in WWI and British control over the land of Palestine, the fire of Zionism became a blaze in the hearts of the Jewish people. Jews in the Diaspora became encouraged that they would once again be able to live in the land of their forefathers.



DAVID BEN-GURION AND THE "YISHUV"

While Weizmann furthered the cause of Zion through his diplomatic contacts in the West, David Ben-Gurion became a pioneer for Zionism among the people in the land of Palestine (Yishuv). David Ben-Gurion was born in Poland in 1886. He migrated to the land of Israel in 1906. In the land, he became the most active Zionist during this time. He became involved in the creation of the first agricultural workers' commune (which evolved into the Kvutzah and finally the Kibbutz). He also helped establish the Jewish self-defense group, "Hashomer" (The Watchman).

In the land, Ben-Gurion was a founder of the trade unions, and in particular, the national federation,  the Histadrut, which he dominated from the early 1920s. He also served as the Histadrut's
representative in the World Zionist Organization and Jewish Agency and was elected chairman of both organizations in 1935. He led the Jewish Legion against the Turks in World War I. After leading the struggle to establish the State of Israel in May 1948, Ben-Gurion became Prime Minister and Defense Minister when Israel became a nation.


BEN YEHUDA AND THE HEBREW LANGUAGE

With the rise of Zionism and the return of the Jewish people to their ancient homeland, Hebrew became the common language that all immigrants were required to learn. With the dispersion of the Jewish people into the nations of the world, Hebrew had practically become a "dead" language.

It was the dream of Eliezer Ben-Yehuda that when the Jewish people returned to their ancient homeland that they would speak their ancient tongue of Hebrew. Ben-Yehuda was most responsible for this becoming a reality. Therefore, he is remembered as being the creator of the modern Hebrew language.

Ben-Yehuda, was born Eliezer Yitzhak Perelman, in the Lithuanian village of Luzhky on January 7, 1858. He learned Hebrew at a young age as a part of his religious upbringing. Though migrating from Russia with tuberculosis in 1881, he devoted his life to rejuvenating the language for modern use, even producing a Hebrew dictionary. In spite of much ridicule, he and his wife "took a vow that no words would ever again pass their lips except in Hebrew, a vow that proved to be one of the turning points in the history of Palestine." 17


ARAB RESPONSE TO JEWISH IMMIGRATION

In the decade following the international approval of the Balfour Declaration, many Jews made aliyah and returned to the land of Palestine. During these years, they came mostly from Russia and Eastern Europe. In the eight years since the Balfour Declaration, the Jewish population had doubled from 55,000 to 103,000. Zionism had finally caught the imagination of the Jewish people, and as oppression increased in Europe, thousands of Jews fled to Palestine and the sanctuary of a Jewish national homeland during the decade of the 1920's. 18

However, all of this was greeted with stiff Arab rejection of Jewish immigration (house of Judah) to  the land of Israel. The main source of agitation was the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini. The British had sought to control the country through two leading families of Palestine with large land holdings, the Husseinis and the Nashashibis. 19 Haj Amin was appointed president of the Supreme Muslim Counsel in 1922, giving him immense political, economic, and religious clout. 20 During World War II, he defected to the Nazis, moving to Rome and Berlin. In the twenties and thirties, he missed no opportunity to stir antagonism and wage war against the Jewish families settling in Palestine.

Despite Arab opposition, a flood of 150,000 Jewish immigrants entered Palestine from 1931 to 1935. 21 While the Jewish community was trying to persuade the British to allow increased Jewish immigration, the Arabs were threatening to cut off access to Middle Eastern oil supplies if immigration was increased. 22 However, when European Jews needed the refuge of immigration the most, it was cut off from them. The ominous year was 1939.

On May 17, 1939, the British government of Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain issued a paper known as the "MacDonald White Paper" (after Malcolm MacDonald, the Colonial Secretary, which cut the immigration of Jews to Palestine almost to nothing. 23

The 1939 White Paper specified three guidelines for Palestine:

(1) Jewish immigration would be slowed, then halted;

(2) Jews would only be allowed to buy land in areas where they were already the majority population;

(3) Britain would support an independent Palestinian state, controlled by the Arabs, after the war.

Winston Churchill called it a "gross breach of faith." 24 It was the virtual surrender to the demands of Arab terrorists. Yet the Grand Mufti even rejected this paper, demanding "the immediate
setting up of an independent Arab state in Palestine and no further Jewish immigration." 25

What happened to the Balfour agreement? It fell victim to the Chamberlain government's policies of  "appeasement." Just as Czechoslavakia was offered to appease the führer in Europe, so the Balfour guarantee was sacrificed to stroke the Mufti in Palestine.

This restrictive British policy appears to have received an immediate frown from heaven. Four months after issuing this White Paper (May 1939), Britain was reluctantly drawn into World War II (September 1, 1939).

One year later Chamberlain was forced to resign when Germany invaded Norway and threatened the British Isles. Nevertheless, the Chamberlain policy on immigration continued throughout the war. Although thousands did escape Hitler's clutches, they were halted as they approached Palestine. Many were turned back at gunpoint when coming ashore; many more died at sea. 26


ADOLF HITLER AND WORD WAR II

As the Second World War erupted, Jewish emigration to Palestine came to a virtual halt. Visas from  Europe were cut off by Adolf Hitler and entrance into Palestine was shut off by the British. 27

Adolf Hitler had a demonic desire to destroy and eliminate the Jewish people from existence. His desire could be seen in five progressive stages. 28

1) The first stage began immediately when he took office and purposed to destroy all Jewish businesses in Germany.

2) The second stage came in 1935 when the Nuremburg laws were passed, depriving all Jews of citizenship.

3) The third stage began with a mass arrest of Jews in September 1939 at the outbreak of war. Jews were put in concentration camps and required to wear the "Badge of Shame" (Yellow Star of David) to distinguish them from non-Jews. For those still allowed to migrate, the ransom price was surrender of all possessions. By 1939, only 200,000 of the 500,000 Jews living in Germany six years earlier still remained.

4) The fourth stage came in 1940 when all Jews were incarcerated in concentration camps. This roundup was later extended to all parts of German-occupied Europe. Nazis hauled Jews in from Austria, Czechoslavakia, Hungary, Poland, Rumania, France, Holland, Switzerland, Belgium, Northern Italy, Yugoslavia, Denmark, and Norway, with only several outstanding exceptions.

5) The fifth and final stage of this madness was called the "final solution" and was initiated by Nazi leadership in 1942. The purpose of the concentration camps changed from detention to extermination, and murder became a full-time German occupation. 29

The main death camps were located in Germany, Poland, Austria, and Czechoslovakia. The memorial at Yad Vashem has listed twenty-two of the largest camps, names known in infamy: Auschwitz, Buchenwald, Dachau, Mauthausen, and Treblinka. The largest was Auschwitz in Poland where over three million were murdered. 30

So, important was this carnage to Nazi leaders that it was given an even higher priority than that of the war effort itself. 31  Although the Nazi cause was clearly lost in early 1945, the gas
chambers and furnaces were kept running full blast. As Finkelstein remarks, "The actual annihilation of the Jewish population was one of the main ideological and military objectives of the German Nazified war machine. And this objective was to a large extent achieved." 32

The following figures on Jewish casualties during the Holocaust have been taken and are compiled by  Judaica Encyclopedia.



DISTRIBUTION OF JEWISH VICTIMS OF THE HOLOCAUST

                Austria 65,000

                Hungary 402,000

                Belgium 24,000

                Italy 7,500

                Czechoslavakia 277,000

                Luxembourg 700

                France 83,000

                Norway 760

                Germany 125,000

                Poland-Soviet 4,565,000

                Greece 65,000

                Rumania 40,000

                Holland 106,000

                Yugoslavia 60,000

                ------------

                Total Jewish Victims 5,820,000


WORLD OUTRAGE DEMANDS A ZIONIST STATE

When international teams of investigators confirmed the horrors of the Holocaust, most of the Western world agreed that immediate measures should be taken to open the door to Palestine. Even the British Labour Party agreed. 33 With "regard to the unspeakable horrors that have been perpetrated upon the Jews in Germany and other occupied countries in Europe," it said, "it is morally wrong and politically indefensible to impose obstacles to the entry into Palestine now of Jews who desire to go there." 34 It furthermore proposed that the Americans, Soviet, and British governments should "see whether we cannot get that common support for a policy which will give us a happy, free, and a prosperous State in Palestine." 35

                                  (End Part 1 of 3)

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