The Return Of The Jews And Their Lawful Right To Palestine

J. G. Wiltshire, Baltimore, Md.

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“The Return Of The Jews And Their Lawful Right To Palestine. To the Editor of The Sun—Sir: In this history-making epoch one need not be a prophet to forecast the future of the Jews and Palestine—a subject of increasing interest to the Christians of the world today.

In studying it the principles of my narrative must be taken collectively; they are so correlated that they cannot be separated without destroying the identity of both. Cast your eye upon the horizon of events as they are rapidly occurring in the world and you will readily see how the prophecies to Abraham as recorded in Holy Writ are being fulfilled to the letter.

See Genesis, xv, 18, and read: ‘Unto thy seed have I given the land from the Nile to the Euphrates.’

Look on your map and you will see that the deed thus recorded corresponds with Palestine—a country consisting of fertile soil, through which the mutual commerce of trade of the near East and West passed in olden times, and through which it will pass again should the Jews colonize Palestine.

In studying this question it may be of interest to note the genesis, development and character of the Jewish people. Most of the students of Jewish history content themselves with the idea that the Jews are descendants of Abraham.

They are in a sense, but Abraham’s roots reach back into antediluvian soil, reaching out with their rootlets, as by destiny, to embrace the world, carrying with them the religion intrusted to their fathers 3,000 years ago.

They have been a persecuted people for many years, but inasmuch as the rapidly occurring events in the Holy Land point to a divinity at work on the second dramatic act in the history of the Jewish people—their return pilgrimage to the ford across the Jordan—I shall spare them the pain of referring to the causes of the evil arrows of pestilence that were sent into their homes, so poignantly given in Jeremiah.

Refined in the furnace of affliction, although having no nationality, they have developed into a strong and useful people in the solution of political, social and economic questions of the countries in which they reside, and today are fighting gallantly for civil and religious liberty of the world.

Preferring to live alone, they have chosen few people other than their own, thus preserving their racial characteristics to this day.

The thing that lends the brightest coloring to their history is their united respect for their women, whom they have preserved and gallantly protected all these years of wandering, holding up virtue to them as a pearl of great price in one’s character, without which the evil hour must come (the saddest of them all), the burial robes put on and the coffin lowered into the grave from sight forever.

Ye, gentiles, gather this valuable lesson to your bosom and let us throw around our women that protection for which we were created, or the clods of the valley will fall on our coffins and our graves be closed forever.

I find I am digressing—let’s get back to our text: ‘I will bring again the captivity of my people of Israel and they shall build the waste cities, and they shall plant vineyards and gardens, and I shall plant them upon their land and they shall no more be pulled up out of their land, which I have given them.’

Not that God said: ‘He will bring the captivity of my people again, and they shall not be rooted up any more.’

As one who has been removed from the land of his nativity, carrying with him the sweet memories of his childhood, on returning to the scenes of his early delights sits under the old oak that sheltered him in his youth and calls up this sweet memory and another, so have the Jews clung to the traditions of their fathers and the hopes that were born of God’s promise to give to Abraham Palestine 2,700 years ago.

Though exiled… and forbidden ownership of these lands by the Sultan of Turkey, they can be seen mounting the peaks around Jerusalem to catch a glimpse of their old camp ground. This is their center of gravity, and so sacred is it to all Christians that many knightly sacrifices have been made at various times to rescue it from the enemies of Christianity, but in vain.

The knightly Cœur de Lion’s crusade against the Saracens proved to be a disaster to his fond hopes to restore that holy spot to the Christians; you will recall how he, as by the irony of fate, was recalled to England through political intrigue at home after the battle of Askalon. The time for the restoration of Palestine to the Jews had not come.

What Cœur de Lion failed to do in 1192 Allenby did in 1917, thus opening the gates of Palestine to all who care to enter their promised land.

The establishment of Jewry in Palestine means the formation of a government at Jerusalem (I would suggest under the protection of England and the United States) at the head of which strong men will stand, whose influence will be potent for good at the peace conference that we hope for in the interest of the peace of the world. This is as far as we can see at present.

We can but sit on the hilltop of expectancy and watch for the coming act in the drama of events. In a confidential talk with His disciples the Saviour said: ‘When the Jews have returned to Jerusalem I will come again.’ He is the Messiah for whom the Jews have been praying for past centuries.

Before closing my paper allow me to make a timely suggestion: Egypt was cruel to Judea, which so displeased God that He avenged the wrongs done her people by leading them through the Red Sea and causing its waters to destroy the pursuing army.

Egypt is no more—wrapped in fine linen, her Pharaohs have long since been laid away in their pyramids, while Judea still lives and is forging on to the mark of her high calling. J. G. WILTSHIRE. Baltimore, Md.”

How this text was made

Transcribed in full from the scan at twelve times magnification. Two or three words are lost to damage after Though exiled and have not been guessed. Spellings are the writer’s own, including intrusted.

Context added by this archive

A reader’s letter in a Baltimore paper, arguing the case on scriptural grounds and in the vocabulary of law: a lawful right. The argument is addressed to Christians and rests on prophecy, and the government it proposes for Jerusalem is one under the protection of England and the United States.

A correction

{'pub': 'The Sun', 'note': 'addressed “To the Editor of The Sun”, not the Philadelphia Inquirer as captioned'}

Cite this item

"The Return Of The Jews And Their Lawful Right To Palestine," The Sun, 1 September 1918. Covering Palestine archive, CP-1918-008. https://coveringpalestine.org/archive/cp-1918-008

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