By Charles Gardner —
Amid the intense warfare provoked by the barbaric Hamas invasion of October 7th comes an explosive new documentary powerfully challenging the false narratives put forth by much of the Western media.
The controversy surrounding the rightful ownership of the land of Israel is the focus of this brilliant 113-minute expose from established film-maker Hugh Kitson, to be premiered in the UK on May 30th.
Narrated by Col Richard Kemp, former British army chief in Afghanistan, it features a host of international lawyers, professors, politicians, and military experts, and is set against the stunning backdrop of the territory in question.
Whose Land? Part II – The Law of Occupation and the Status of Jerusalem – explores the 76-year-old history of the modern nation’s legitimacy.
In terms of international law, correctly interpreted, the program concludes that there is absolutely no question of Israel’s rightful inheritance to the land. But the nations have fallen hook, line, and sinker to Arab claims that Israel have stolen it from them.
And Britain’s role is sullied by several examples of betrayal. Having been handed the privilege of preparing the Jewish people for statehood, we meekly succumbed to the threats of those who did not wish Jews to live amongst them.
When, in 1947, the UN effectively proposed a ‘two-state solution’ of separate Jewish and Arab states living side by side, the Jews accepted the far from ideal plan, but the Arabs rejected it out of hand.
Israel was reborn nonetheless, but immediately came under fierce attack from her Arab neighbors, with a British general even commanding Jordanian forces against them. And in that War of Independence, Jordan illegally annexed Judea, Samaria, and East Jerusalem (now collectively known as the West Bank) – an act recognized only by Britain and Pakistan – with Jerusalem’s Old City ethnically cleansed of Jews in the process.
And when Israel took back what was rightfully theirs in the 1967 Six-Day War, she subsequently became designated as the “illegal occupier”, a term described as “utter nonsense” by one of the film’s contributors. Blatant propaganda really took hold when Jordan later ‘transferred’ the West Bank to the Palestinians, described by Col Kemp as “like handing over stolen property”.
Palestinian propaganda – that the land does not belong to Israel – has since poisoned (and numbed) the minds of many, including Arab schoolchildren, American college students, and even foreign ministers of Western countries around the globe.
The film highlights the absurdities of the conflict, like the idea of giving up land for peace, which has only served to increase Palestinian terrorism. And the fact that, following the Camp David agreement of 2000, “Arafat won a (Nobel) peace prize for going home and starting a war,” referring to the so-called Second Intifada.
The problem for the Arabs was not the land, nor even Israel, but the Jewish people, backed up by the radical anti-Israel agenda constantly promoted by the UN, while the Western media does nothing to challenge Islamic propaganda denying Israel’s ancient links with the land.
The status of Jerusalem also comes under the microscope. The heart of Judaism for 3,000 years, and its natural capital, became a particularly hot potato when the threat of an oil embargo saw the last remaining 13 foreign embassies leave Jerusalem for Tel Aviv in 1980.
Thankfully, the International Christian Embassy Jerusalem was set up in its place, dedicated to helping Israelis in many practical ways as well as by hosting an annual event during the Feast of Tabernacles to demonstrate Christian support for the state.
Though the film does not seek to give a theological overview of the subject, it does include several Christian participants. After all, the call for Christians to get behind Israel has never been more vital, especially in view of the current genocidal war which seeks to drive them off the land and even wipe them off the face of the earth.
Those of us who believe in the absolute authority of God’s word surely have no choice but to back Israel to the hilt. Quite apart from legitimate international treaties (San Remo in 1920 and the League of Nations Mandate of 1922), the land bears the seal of divine promise (Genesis 15:18 & 17:8, for example).
And Jews from every corner of the globe have returned there in direct fulfilment of a shedload of biblical prophecies. These are the people through whom Jesus, our Savior, came. God still regards them as the “apple of his eye” (Deuteronomy 32:10, Zechariah 2:8) and his “treasured possession” (Exodus 19:5, Malachi 3:17 & three times in Deuteronomy).
We owe them so much for what we’ve inherited – the patriarchs, the prophets, the precious Scriptures, and Jesus himself (see also Romans 15:27). And we would do well to note Isaiah’s stark warning: “For the nation or kingdom that will not serve you will perish; it will be utterly ruined.” (Isaiah 60:12)
The film ends, appropriately, with a clip of Israel’s former Ambassador to the UN Danny Danon holding up a Bible, declaring: “This is the deed to our land.”