An oft-touted narrative in international relations is that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is primarily Israel’s fault. Israel, per the argument, is occupying the West Bank and eastern Jerusalem illegally. The Arabs just want a fair deal, and if Israel withdrew to the pre-1967 borders, everybody would be happy. We could have peace. This narrative ignores one big factor: The Palestinian Arabs themselves do not want peace. The same goes for many of their backers in the rest of the Middle East. Last month, an article from a very influential medium in the Arab world admitted as such: “For Palestine, Justice Is not a Question of Law” (February 8).

Here are some excerpts:

[It is not] productive or wise to confine all efforts towards Palestinian liberation within the frames of human rights and international law. The Palestinian struggle for liberation must be multifaceted and multidimensional. We need to ensure that the legal approach does not become the predominant face of the Palestinian struggle. It is—and should remain—merely one of its facets. After all, the core of the Palestinian struggle has never been and will never be a legal one. It is a struggle of and for justice, not law. There is a critical difference between the two. …

[T]he international legal system has been created by imperial powers to protect their hegemony and serve their interests. Indeed, the legal structures that the oppressed and marginalized are told to rely on to deal with imperial and settler colonial violence are themselves a crucial part of the political system that birthed that violence. They actively legitimize, maintain and justify imperial and settler colonial violence, including Israel’s against the Palestinians. International law, which is supposed to be a neutral vehicle for justice, is, in fact, a form of violence in and of itself.

In international forums, proponents of a “two-state solution” claim Israel must disengage from the West Bank because its presence is illegal. But according to the op-ed, “the core of the Palestinian struggle has never been and will never be a legal one.” Surprisingly Al Jazeera admitted this.

Based in Qatar, Al Jazeera is one of the most influential news mediums in the Arab world. It is nominally independent of the government, but it was founded by Qatari Emir Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani in 1996 and is still funded by the government. This is the same government that sponsors groups like Hamas and the Taliban. These connections don’t necessarily make everything Al Jazeera writes unreliable, but they do explain its disproportionately negative coverage of Israel—especially anything related to the Palestinian issue.

Perhaps the author didn’t mean to undermine the Palestinians’ public argument so openly. But the article is a tacit admission of why every peace plan between Israel and the Palestinian Arabs has always failed.

When the United Nations tried to make a peaceful settlement between Jews and Arabs in the 1940s, the Jews accepted the plan but the Arabs rejected it. Peace plans sponsored by the United States fell apart. Overtures made directly between Israel and the Arab world fell apart. In war after war, uprising after uprising, the Arabs both within and without Israel have rejected peace with Israel. And whatever Israel offers is never enough.

The Al Jazeera piece reveals why. The Arab-Israeli conflict has nothing to do with law. The dispute is not between which borders are legal or how to administer the right to self-determination. It has nothing to do if “colonialism” legitimizes or delegitimizes a nation’s actions. “Justice,” according to the Palestinians, means warpath. It means the other party in the dispute has no rights to respect, no concerns to address, no say in the matter whatsoever. Al Jazeera admits what everybody in the Arab world already knew but many Israelis don’t: Peace can never come through treaties and other vehicles of international law. To the Palestinians, the entire international system is illegitimate. If they can get everything they want through Israel waving the white flag, then all is well. But the international system’s “illegitimacy” means any form of “resistance” is acceptable.

The Al Jazeera piece doesn’t elaborate on what kind of “resistance” should be pursued instead. But considering the escalating terrorist attacks in Israel, it doesn’t take too much imagination to fill in the gaps.

Some Palestinian groups claim they support a “two-state solution.” Various peace deals offered through the decades would have given them a “two-state solution.” But whether immediately or down the road, they always make clear through their actions that they support a “one-state solution” where the Jewish state of Israel no longer exists. If Israel doesn’t wake up to this reality, then it can expect very bad things, to say the least, in the near future.

The Bible prophesies that such “bad things” are an eventuality.

Today, the Jewish state goes by the name “Israel,” but its ancient name is Judah. The book of Hosea has a particular prophecy regarding modern Judah: “When Ephraim saw his sickness, and Judah saw his wound, then went Ephraim to the Assyrian, and sent to king Jareb: yet could he not heal you, nor cure you of your wound” (Hosea 5:13).

This prophecy is hard to understand unless one knows the modern identities of the peoples mentioned. Judah is the State of Israel. Ephraim refers to Great Britain. The modern Assyrians are the Germans. (Please see here for more information.) In Hosea 5, the Hebrew text suggests both Judah and Ephraim go to Assyria.

Trumpet editor in chief Gerald Flurry writes in his booklet Jerusalem in Prophecy:

Why do the Jews go to Germany, and what is Judah’s wound? The word wound is number 4205 in Strong’s Concordance; it means “in the sense of binding up: a bandage, i.e. remedy ….” Gesenius’ Hebrew-Chaldee Lexicon defines it this way: “the pressing together, binding up of a wound; here used figuratively of a remedy applied to the wounds of the state …” (emphasis mine throughout). In other words, the remedy is the wound! …

Is the peace pact with the Arabs the Israeli wound that God refers to in Hosea 5:13? There would have been no peace pact if Judah would have trusted God instead of men.

Since 1967, the West Bank has been a white elephant for Israel. Many Israelis are tired of fighting a war that promises no end. Many hope that some sort of peace deal will finally put an end to Israel’s suffering—some legal agreement that both Israelis and Arabs can get behind.

What they don’t see (or perhaps willfully overlook) is that their enemies do not want peace. And as Mr. Flurry wrote, as long as Israelis keep looking to men for their solutions, they won’t be getting any peace. But the same Bible that prophesies of Israel’s “wound” states that Israel will finally have the peace it has waited for so long. And it’s not that far off.

To learn more, please request a free copy of Jerusalem in Prophecy.