Free The Everlasting Hatred by Hal Lindsey Page A

ocean.
    The richest part of Arabia in ancient history was the southern coast, which thrusts out into the Indian Ocean. This area received seasonal rains and produced some of the most exotic in-demand plants of the ancient world. The much sought after fragrance called myrrh came from there. It also accumulated great wealth because its seaports were along the main trade route from Asia.
    3. “His hand will be against everyone and everyone’s hand will be against him.” 61
    This characteristic has been dominant throughout the history of the Arabs. Hitti summarizes accurately the Arab Bedouin nature:
    The Bedouin still lives, as his forebears did, in tents of goats’ or camels’ hair (“houses of hair”), and grazes his sheep and goats on the same ancient pastures. Sheep-and-camel-raising, and to a lesser degree horse-breeding, hunting and raiding, are his regular occupations, and are to his mind the only occupations worthy of a man. 62
    Blood feuds have been fought between the many Arab tribes of the peninsula for centuries. Their lists of grudges against each other can go back for centuries. If an Arab is forced out of the protection of his tribe, he usually doesn’t last very long.
    The wild donkey reflects this very characteristic, for he groups together in small herds and is hostile with even other herds of his own kind. Similarly Arab society from its earliest history divided up into many clans. Again Hitti describes the predominant Arab social structure:
    The spirit of the clan demands boundless and unconditional loyalty to fellow clansmen, a passionate chauvinism. His allegiance, which is individualism of the member magnified, assumes that his tribe is a unit by itself, self-sufficient and absolute,
and regards every other tribe as its legitimate victim and object of plunder and murder
. 63
    There have been only a few things that have been able to unite the Arabs in all their history. The most important unifier was Mohammad and the initial impact of the Muslim religion. And over time, even the common religion could not hold the different Arab tribes together.
    Then there was the common threat to their “Holy Places” posed by the Catholic crusaders. Muslim armies united to fightoff the successive waves of European knights sent by the pope to liberate Jerusalem and the ancient Holy Land.
    In our present era, the most powerful unifying factor of all has arisen. Nothing can unite the warring Muslim factions like their historic hatred for Jews, which has been reignited by their reestablishment of the state of Israel. To the Muslims, Israel’s existence in the midst of what they consider their sacred sphere of the earth is the ultimate sacrilege. It is an insult to Allah that must be avenged and destroyed. To the Muslim, the fact that Israel has beaten them in five wars even threatens the veracity of the Koran, which promises them victory over the infidels, especially when their fight is a “Jihad to liberate their third holiest site— Jerusalem.” The Jewish occupation of Jerusalem is a “humiliation” that must be avenged for the sake of the honor of Allah and the truth of the Koran. The combination of all these issues elevates religious passion to an intensity that cannot be fathomed by the Western mind.
    Much more will be said on this subject later in the book.
    4. “And he will live in hostility toward all of his brothers, [and he will dwell to the east of them.]” 64
    This part of the prophecy concerning Ishmael and his descendents is particularly important. Many English translations simply translate this clause as, “and he will dwell to east of all his brothers.” But the Hebrew words and grammatical construction are much more complex than that translation would imply.
    Hebrew scholars Keil and Delitzsch observe that the expression often translated as, “He will dwell before the face of all his brethren” (from the Hebrew,