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"

         Copies can be purchased for individual or group study by
         writing to me (Eddie Chumney) at: (chumney@hebroots.org)


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


                                   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 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 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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