NOTES for Ma1 15:33-34

Historically, many countries and peoples have laid claim to Palestine. This was connected, first of all, with its favorable geographical position: Palestine has always been and remains today the key to the Middle East; control over Palestine means power over neighboring territories, and all rulers and conquerors of all times and peoples understood this perfectly.

They also understood that the key height in Palestine itself is Judea, Jerusalem, Mount Zion. And yet few managed to seize Judea, and still fewer to hold it. The only people in a thousand-year history who managed to create a state that included all of Palestine was the Jewish people. Palestine, of course, at various times belonged to many empires, but only as a distant province. A properly Palestinian state, if it ever existed, existed only as a Jewish state, which included not only Jews but also all the other peoples and tribes living in Palestine during the existence of that state.

The Maccabean era was no exception: Judea, like Palestine as a whole, was at that time part of Hellenistic Syria, to which it had passed after Syria's victory in the war with Hellenistic Egypt. But even in those times only the Jews managed to create an independent state in Judea. There is nothing accidental in such a historical arrangement: the Bible tells us quite unambiguously that God destined Palestine for His people; it is not surprising that He never allowed any people except the Jewish people to create a state here.

Simon, as is clear, understands this perfectly: he speaks of Judea as his land, which by definition can belong only to his people. All others who happen to possess it are only accidental masters, temporary holders whom God permits to govern this land only insofar as God's people prove unworthy of it. But such conditional possession can be ended by God at any moment when He considers it necessary to return it to the governance of His people.

Therefore Simon has no intention of speaking with representatives of the Syrian authorities about any compensation: such a conversation would automatically mean acknowledging Syria's right to land to which, according to Simon's firm conviction, it can have no rights. The issue here is not the exclusive sovereignty of the Jewish people, but the exclusive sovereignty of God over the whole earth, part of which He gives to His people, a decision that it hardly makes sense to dispute.