Colin Armstrong on Israel/Palestine

CORRECTION - delete Jacob/Israel in one place.  Substitute Isaac, below in my notes.  See Genesis 21 v 12-13

 Through Isaac we get Jacob/Israel and eventually the Jews derived from Judah, I understand.

In v 13 "I will make a nation of the son of the slave woman also."  That son is Ishmael leading to the Arabs.

My Bible notes have: "Though Ishmael was not the heir of the promise, God was with the lad, destined to be the ancestor of Bedouin tribes of the southern wilderness."  Genesis 16 v 7-16 for Hagar giving birth to Ismael.  Leading to the Arabs.  Chapter 16 is a fuller/different/parallel account of chapter 21.

On Mon, 14 Sept 2026 at 21:28, Tim Weller <timweller1@gmail.com> wrote:

Yesterday, I came across Colin Armstrong on Andrew Marr's Facebook page and liked what I heard and what I read, below.  So here it is from my blog.  CORRECTIONS, COMMENTS WELCOMED:

Sunday, 13 September 2026

Colin Armstrong on Israel/Palestine

I came across this on journalist Andrew Marr's Facebook page, in a comment on what he said on LBC.

SELF:

The Lord God/Yahweh gave Jacob/Israel's descendants the land 3,000 years ago - for all time.  But was it for all time?  I don't think the Bible says anything about God giving the tribes of Israel the Promised Land for an eternity.  Only once after leaving slavery in Egypt and capturing/defeating  mainly the Canaanites.  Their aggression and victory was rewarded with them keeping the land.  Just like 1948.  Today, contrary to international law, of course.  

In 1948, God gave Israel the Promised Land for a third time.  But that was after a gap of over 2,000 years when they did not have it.  Therefore, the promise of ownership is more in the breaking of that promise than in its keeping.  One third of the time, at the very most, God has kept His promise of ownership for Jews only.  But for two thirds of the time, God has denied His People their supposed rightful ownership.  And remember, the Hebrew Scriptures were written by Hebrews/Jews.  Of course, fully inspired by the mighty Lord God Himself - who was always on their side, the lucky people!

Therefore, it is very dodgy for Bibi and our fervent Christian/Messianic Jewish friends to be arguing that the Bible proves only Israel must have the Promised Land and all of it, from the River to the Sea - and, forever.  Or, even for a third time.  A third time by defeating the biggest empire the world had ever seen, when we brave Brits meekly surrendered and went slinking home in the face of the three Jewish terrorist gangs shooting at us.  One of the gangs, Haganah, became the Israeli Defense Forces.  Still terrorists in my book but, I must be wrong because they are "the most moral army in the world".  And don't you forget it!

In addition, two lots of descendants of Abraham always wanted and still want the same land and are unable to share.  It came about like this.

The Arabs came from Ishmael after Abraham had sex with Hagar, his slave woman/mistress - and, permitted by Yahweh/God, would you believe.  So Ishmael was Abraham's first born son.  Jacob/Israel was eventually born to Sara in her old age.  There was a big row, Ishmael stormed off and Arabs and Jews have been unable to get on ever since.  Are family rows always the worst kind?!

Tim

Colin supports a one state solution.

 

COLIN ARMSTRONG:

He (Andrew Marr) is right but the consequences for Israel will be terrible if they don't moderate their behaviour and accept that the Palestinians exist. 

Many of us came from the same position as Andrew Marr but since Oct 7th '23 and the disproportionate response of the Israelis our views regarding Israel have changed. 

We've looked at its history and we've realised that the European Jews who moved to Palestine in the 20th century didn't take over an empty land and make the desert bloom. They took over a land populated by an indigenous population who had lived there for thousands of years and from the beginning they systematically killed and ethnically cleansed that population in a ruthless, cruel, and illegal way and Gaza is just a continuation of that evil. 

There's no coming back for Israel. Its reputation has been destroyed by its own brutality and the only solution is a one state solution where everyone, living in Israel, Gaza, and the West Bank has equal rights and live in a secular democratic state with protected rights. They managed it in N Ireland; let's hope a similar solution is possible in Palestine/Israel.

TO: Colin Armstrong 

Palestinians were invented in 1964 by Arafat as a political ploy against Israel, under the British Mandate of Palestine the Arabs didn’t call themselves Palestinians because it was associated with Jews. Read your history. The Jews are the indigenous people of that land and they started turning it into something and then the Arabs started coming in droves way before 1948!

TO: Phyllis Lane Sciborowski

There was a very small Jewish indigenous population in Palestine in the 19th century. The bulk of the population, also indigenous, was Arab and then the Austrian, Herzl invented zionism and the Palestinian Arabs miraculously disappeared according to the zionists and it was an " empty land", another lie. 

The Jewish population of Israel today is largely made up of European, Arab, and Russian Jews who colonised Palestine throughout the 20th century but the Arabs/ Palestinians were and are still there.

The facts of history are that Zionism and current day Israel is a racist supremacist colonial manifestation of a form of race based politics that prioritises one group over another and that the process of clearing the land of Arabs who have lived there for millennia has been ongoing since the inception of that state in 1948. 

Your reasoning that the Jews are the indigenous population of that land is ludicrous. We might as well say that the Anglo Saxons and the Celts have the right to the land that they controlled a few thousand years ago. Maybe we could search out the descendents of Boudica and demand the right of return for her clan. That's how ridiculous the zionist justification for stealing the land from the people that owned it actually is.

This current crisis and Israel's murderous behaviour has opened the eyes of millions who formerly supported it. There's no getting away from it and the myths of the "empty land" and "making the desert bloom" have been exposed for the lies they are. Israel was founded on theft, ethnic cleansing, and murder and that's the historical fact and it will be recorded as such in years to come.