The Problem of Arab/Palestinian Rejectionism

Response to Minto’s article, NZH, 12 July 2022

13 July 2022

Dear Editor,

John Minto’s piece “From Raglan to Palestine” doesn’t fit with the historical reality. It was not “mass expulsions of Palestinians from their land”. The Israelis were fighting a war forced upon them by the conventional armies of neighbouring Arab nations and local Arab militias which resulted in people fleeing. The war was forced by Arab hostility and rejection of a plan to divide Palestine into Arab and Jewish states. The Jewish Agency accepted the plan but the Arabs at their own peril rejected it. It was Arab rejectionism then and Palestinian rejectionism now that is the problem. Thank God for the Abraham accords where Arab countries like Bahrain, the UAE and Morocco are making peace with Israel and trying a different route. They should teach it to the Palestinians, who are of Arab descent and originate from different parts of the Middle East and do not have a special indigenous right to “Palestine” as Minto claims. That claim belongs to the Jewish people. History records only three times when “Palestine” has been autonomous with Jerusalem as its capital: the Kingdoms of Israel and Judah in biblical times; the Hasmonean Kingdom just before the time of Christ; and the modern State of Israel in our time. All Jewish. When Palestinian leaders recognise the right of the Jewish people to have a state in the area then hopefully peace and respect can begin to flourish.

Pastor Nigel Woodley

Flaxmere Christian Fellowship, Hastings

God bless,

Nigel