By Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent Worthy News
THE HAGUE/JERUSALEM (Worthy News) – Nearly a thousand Christians from dozens of nations have urged the United Nations top court to recognize Israel’s Biblical right to its historic land, including Judea and Samaria, also known as the West Bank.
Their declaration was “hand-delivered” to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague ahead of Friday’s ruling on “the legality” of Israel’s control over Judea and Samaria and East Jerusalem, Worthy News learned.
On the “‘Legal Consequences arising from the Policies and Practices of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem’,” the Court [will] deliver its Advisory Opinion on Friday 19 July 2024 at 3 p.m. (local time),” the ICJ said.
In November 2022, the ICJ was asked by 98 nations to present “an advisory opinion” on Israel’s “prolonged occupation, settlement and annexation of Palestinian territory.”
The resolution passed in December 2022 in the U.N. General Assembly, with 87 nations voting in favor, 26 against, and 53 abstentions.
At the time, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu condemned the resolution as “distorting historical facts” and said Jewish people “cannot be an occupier” in their own land.
At the conference near the Peace Palace, the seat of the ICJ, some 800 pro-Israel Christians from 45 countries also expressed their “opposition to the partition of the land.”
15 JUDGES
Organizers said their declaration was delivered to all 15 judges and Israel’s Deputy Ambassador to the Netherlands, Yaron Wax.
Christians condemned the ICJ for allowing the Organization of Islamic Cooperation to express its views on the legality of Israel’s control over Judea and Samaria. At the same time, Christian groups “were prevented” from doing so.
“We, Christian representatives of our nations from all over the world, declare and testify that the Land of Israel includes East Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria,” the declaration said. “These areas belong indisputably to Israel and are ultimately the inheritance of the Jewish people. Dividing the Land is in conflict with the Bible and the will of the Lord God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of Israel.”
The document was signed in The Hague by Christian leaders and political representatives, including former U.S. congresswoman Michele Bachmann and Pastor Satish Kumar, the head of Calvary Temple Church in Hyderabad, India’s largest evangelical congregation.
David Parsons, vice president of the Israel-based International Christian Embassy, Jerusalem, said the organization “was proud” to be part of the declaration.
“The Christian Embassy came to support this initiative in The Hague to make sure the justices at the World Court [the other term for ICJ] heard the perspective [shared by] tens of millions of God-fearing Christians worldwide,” he said. These Christians “stand with the Jewish people’s 4,000-year-old claim and connection to the Land of Israel,” Parsons stressed.
He slammed the ICJ’s decision not to accept a Christian opinion on the issue of Israeli control over the biblical heartland of Judea and Samaria.
ISLAMIC COOPERATION
“It would not be just or fair for the Organization of Islamic Cooperation to be allowed to present their shameful annihilistic view on the very existence of Israel while an even larger global Christian constituency was being ignored. In our eyes, the modern-day Jewish restoration to their ancestral homeland is the greatest example of historic justice in the entire course of human endeavors,” he said.
The Organization of Islamic Cooperation arguments included various perspectives, such as the view that the “whole territory of Mandate Palestine” belongs to the Palestinians, effectively ending the existence of modern Israel.
They also claimed that the re-establishment of the Jewish homeland in current territories was “a breach” of the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination.
Additionally, the Islamic group called for an “end all Israeli occupation of East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza.”
Jack van der Tang, the chairman of The Hague-based International Conference for Truth, Justice, and Peace, said it was a Biblical duty to support Israel. “Everyone is talking about international law, but this is 100 percent Biblical,” Van der Tang stressed.
“My hometown, The Hague, is called the ‘capital of peace and justice,’ but a local rabbi taught me that world Jewry stands on three pillars: ‘truth, peace and justice.’ And I send the third page of the truth about Israel to the ICJ.”
Copyright 1999-2024 Worthy News. This article was originally published on Worthy News and was reproduced with permission.
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