I’m usually pretty cheap — Jack Benny could have taken some lessons. But it was there, the special edition of National Geographic: “The Holy Land — Crossroads of Faith and Conflict”.

I plunked down eleven bucks, knowing what I was getting. Glossy, amazing photos. Rich writing.

And propaganda.

This issue was actually a bit more even-handed than most. National Geographic has promoted a leftist philosophy for decades. The Wikipedia entry is quite interesting:

“The National Geographic Society (NGS), headquartered in Washington, D.C. in the United States, is one of the largest non-profit scientific and educational institutions in the world. Its interests include geography, archaeology and natural science, the promotion of environmental and historical conservation, and the study of world culture and history.”

But knowing how the world-at-large feels about the Jewish element in the Arab-Israeli conflict, I was a bit surprised that the whole piece wasn’t nastier than it was. I’m talking about the stance taken on the political scene. There was the usual chatter about Israeli occupation of Palestinians, etc., but overall I wasn’t as troubled by that as I was the back-story. And I mean, BACK-back-story.

Aptly (and ironically) named, the first section of the magazine — “In the Beginning” — attempts to trace the history of the region. As I read further, I became excited, since I’ve long felt that what a person believes about the first five books of the Bible, particularly Genesis, colors what he or she believes about Israel.

In other words, if one believes Genesis is real history, then one tends to accept the Old Testament promises God made to the Jews (based on a unconditional covenant). If one doesn’t believe that Genesis is history, then one doesn’t believe the Jews are more entitled to the Holy Land than anyone else (namely, the Arabs).

Michael Balter, who wrote the “In the Beginning” piece, made the following statement:

“What made the Holy Land so pivotal in human history? The answer lies deep in humanity’s evolutionary roots, as early hominins left their homeland in East Africa and began colonizing the globe nearly two million years ago.”

I could go on, but why? As I read it, truth be told, I started to nod off after reading the phrase “evolutionary roots.”

And yet the whole section fascinates. Here we see the link (not missing, unfortunately) between Darwinian philosophy and the Middle East peace process.

If the world’s diplomats believed the Bible, then they’d be opposing totalitarian dictators like Hugo Chavez, not fawning over him while he feigns solidarity with the Palestinians.

But do you see the point? Because they are wrong about Genesis, they are wrong about geopolitics.

To the secular and leftwing religionists today, it makes perfect sense to force Israel to carve-up its ancestral, biblical homeland because that would provide a state for the Palestinians. But in the Bible, God gives the land to the Jews forever, and further states his displeasure in carving-up the inheritance for others (Joel 3:1, 2).

Now, the National Geographic has been shaped by the Grosvenor family for over a hundred years. Gilbert Hovey Grosvenor served as editor of the magazine for 55 years; his son, Melville Bell Grosvenor, served as editor from 1957-69; his son, Gilbert Melville Grosvenor, served as editor from 1970-80. The family enthusiastically supported the work of famed paleontologists Louis Leakey and his wife, Meave.

In fact, we see that old National Geographic bias coming out in Balter’s article; recall the “homeland in East Africa…” phrase, an ode to Leakey’s theory that man’s evolutionary tree had deep roots on the continent.

Because the founders and staff of the Geographic believe early man emerged from the trees in East Africa, they do not believe the Old Testament promises have any validity in our world today.

It’s tragically too bad that their version of beginnings is so markedly different from the Bible’s.

Yasser Arafat often famously said that the Jews of Israel could “go drink seawater,” a euphemistic threat that meant if the Israelis didn’t want to share the land (he really meant the Palestinians wanted all of it), then they, with their backs to the wall, could go west, toward the Mediterranean.

That’s why I call Israel “Genesis of a Controversy.” They were born in that book. If one doesn’t believe their birth was real, at a real point in history, then one doesn’t mind contemplating their death, either.

Which is why I’m overjoyed that the Bible presents a different future for the Jews and Israel, summed-up in one word:

Eternal.

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Originally published in One News Now, Prophecy Matters. December 21, 2009

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