[How is it that only the Israelis know that World War III started on September 11, 2001?]

If you throw a rock into the middle of a wolf pack, the one that yelps is the one that got hit. So goes the old American proverb. My rock - choosing to call "Palestinians" by the allegorical name "Philistines" - has caused a lot of yelping of late. A few friends of Israel (who are therefore by extension also friends of mine) don't like me calling them by that term. That's okay. I don't mind their objections. But here's why I'm not going to change my mind on this issue: Israel belongs to whoever conquers it.

The modern Philistines (i.e., "Palestinians" like the Muslims) can make no valid claim to the land of Israel. That's because they never conquered the land. They were only living there when England conquered the land from the Ottoman Empire way back at the end of World War I.

And I don't even want to hear about Yasser Arafat. The man's an Egyptian. He doesn't have a leg to stand on, so to speak, in the argument.

Simply put, Israel belongs to whomever conquers it.

At the present, the Jews own the land by right of conquest. Not by them, mind you (except for the 1948, 1967, and 1973 victories, which we'll talk about in a minute). Remember please, that the Jews didn't exactly conquer the land. They inherited it.

From England.

And England conquered it - fair and square, as we say here in the good old USA - from the Ottoman Empire following World War I.

Granted, Israel did fight and conquer the land after they gained possession of it. The wars of 1948, 1967, 1973, and hundreds of defensive actions over the years, certainly attest to Israel's right to the land by virtue of subsequent successful military actions.

But in case the Muslims have forgotten so soon, England conquered Israel and seized it from modern-day Turkey, who sided with the Axis powers during that first world conflict of the twentieth century.

The Ottoman Empire lost the war, and to the victor went the spoils of that war.

England repaid its debt to the Jewish inventor whose invaluable contribution to the war effort made victory possible in that conflict for the West. That inventor had demanded that a place be set aside in Palestine for the Jews.

So Israel became the property of the United Kingdom. And then England turned the land over to Jewish hegemony in 1948.

Israel Was Conquered By [Fill In Name Of Conqueror Here]

The facts behind why the Philistines have no historic right to the land of Israel are really no more complex than the simplicity of the right of conquest. As Lawrence Auster pointed out rather forcefully in a recent editorial that he published in Front Page Magazine, there is no particularly clear chain of title that makes Israel's title to the land inferior to that of any of the previous owners, apart from the Bible that is, which Auster ignores in his essay. The previous owner/occupiers of Israel included, if you count backward in time from today:

 The Jews, who conquered Judea, Samaria, and Gaza (which Israel calls Yesha) during the 1967 war. Israel used to control the Sinai peninsula following the 1973 war, but some stupid Israeli politician handed it back to Egypt due to the influence of another equally stupid US president. But that's another story for another day. Israel also conquered the Golan Heights from Syria. Judea and Samaria were conquered from:

 The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, which was set up by international agreement to be the original "Palestinian" homeland that Yasser Arafat and company have been bitching about for the last 40+ years.

 The Jews took over Israel formally in May, 1948 from:

 England, who took it over in 1917 from:

 The Ottoman Turks, who took over Palestine in 1517 from:

 The Mamluks, Turkish and Circassian slave-soldiers headquartered in Egypt, in 1250 took Palestine over from:

 The Ayyubi dynasty, the descendants of Saladin, the Kurdish Muslim leader who in 1187 took Jerusalem and most of Palestine from:

 The European Christian Crusaders, who in 1099 conquered Palestine from:

 The Seljuk Turks, who ruled Palestine in the name of:

 The Abbasid Caliphate of Baghdad, which in 750 took over the sovereignty of the entire Near East from:

 The Umayyad Caliphate of Damascus, which in 661 inherited control of the Islamic lands from:

 The Arabs of Arabia, who in the first flush of Islamic expansion conquered Palestine in 638 from:

 The Byzantines, who upon the division of the Roman Empire in 395, inherited Palestine from:

 The Romans, who in 63 BC took it over from:

 The last Jewish kingdom, which during the Maccabee rebellion from 168 to 140 BC won control of the land from:

 The Hellenistic Greeks, who under Alexander the Great in 333 BC conquered the Near East from:

 The Persian empire, which under Cyrus the Great in 639 BC freed Jerusalem and Judah from:

 The Babylonian empire, which under Nebuchadnezzar in 586 BC took Jerusalem and Judah from:

 The Jews, who conquered the land starting about 1400 BC from:

 The Canaanites, who had inhabited the land for thousands of years before they were dispossessed by the Israelites.

Who Will Conquer Israel Next?

As I said a minute ago, the facts are really no more complex than the simplicity of the right of conquest. So I'm going to continue calling "Palestinians" by the name "Philistines". Not because the Palestinians have any inherent right to the land just because I'm calling them "Philistines", but because the Palestinians have as much right to the land as did the Philistines.

Which is that they have no right to the land. Just as the Philistines had no right to the land. (Nehemiah 2:20 declares that no Arab, Moabite or Ammonite have any ancestral heritage, legal rights or historic claim to the land.)

Israel owns the land.

And the Philistines may leave. Or take an oath of loyalty, become Israelis by adoption and live in peace with the Jewish state of Israel.

Or die.

I really don't care which.

The Jews will own the land until they're conquered. Or until somebody in the Israeli government is stupid enough to force its citizens to leave the land.

Uh-oh. I forgot.

Israel's present government has been stupid enough to start forcing its citizens to leave the land. They're making them leave Gaza, which is part of the historic land.

Damn. Damn President Dubya's Road Map.

Will an American president orchestrate the World's Last Night?

People of Israel: Listen to me: conquer you must, for your cause is just. Let this be your watchword: in God is your trust.

Concluding Thoughts

May the living God bless those who bless Abraham and his rightful heirs to HaAretz. We are Dar Al-Harb* - and proud of it.

* Dar Al-Harb: The Domain at War: "Territory under the hegemony of unbelievers, which is on terms of active or potential belligerency with the Domain of Islam...." (Glossary of Islamic Terms by Muhammad Ishaq Zahid; Copyright © 1998-1999 by the Sabr Foundation)