The modern claim is simple and sweeping: the Arab people, through Islam and under the name Palestine, hold the rightful title to the land God promised Abraham’s descendants. The Jews, therefore, have no biblical or historical right to it.

That claim is the fuel of the global anti-Zionist movement. A literal reading of the Bible shows the claim is false from its first premise. God did not leave the identity of the heir in doubt. After Ishmael had already been born, the Lord spoke:

“Sarah thy wife shall bear thee a son indeed; and thou shalt call his name Isaac: and I will establish my covenant with him for an everlasting covenant, and with his seed after him. And as for Ishmael, I have heard thee: Behold, I have blessed him… But my covenant will I establish with Isaac.” (Genesis 17:19-21)

The land itself is part of that covenant: “all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession” (Genesis 17:8). The same oath is repeated to Isaac (Genesis 26:3-4) and to Jacob, renamed Israel (Genesis 35:12). Psalm 105 later calls it “an everlasting covenant… Unto thee will I give the land of Canaan, the lot of your inheritance.” Ishmael is blessed with nationhood. He is not given the deed.

The Philistines cannot supply the missing title. Scripture traces them through Mizraim, a son of Ham, and from Caphtor (Genesis 10:13-14; Amos 9:7; Jeremiah 47:4). They displaced the Avim on a coastal strip whose chief cities were Gaza, Ashkelon, Ashdod, Ekron and Gath (Deuteronomy 2:23). They were never the seed of Abraham. They were perpetual enemies of Israel. After the Babylonian campaigns of the early sixth century B.C. they disappear as a distinct people. The prophets treat them as a remnant slated for destruction, not as future owners of the hill country of Judah, Samaria or Galilee.

The name “Palestine” is later still. Greek writers used a cognate of Philistia for that same coastal enclave. After the Bar-Kokhba revolt, Rome renamed the province of Judaea “Syria Palaestina”—a punitive act intended to erase the Jewish link to the land by invoking Israel’s old coastal enemies. The Bible itself never applies the name to the covenant territory. Islam arrived more than two thousand years after the oath to Isaac. No subsequent conquest, migration or religious revelation can transfer an everlasting grant God bound Himself to keep.

Yet this invented title now powers the movement that insists Jews have no right to the land. Diplomacy treats Jerusalem as a stone that must be lifted and divided. Boycott campaigns isolate Israeli cultural institutions. Tens of thousands of protests across more than 130 countries, successive waves of recognition of a Palestinian state, and celebrity pledges not to work with Israeli festivals all rest on the same premise: the Arabs own the deed, the Jews are interlopers. In 2025 thousands of film workers, including prominent Hollywood names, formalized that premise in an open letter. The premise is the fraud.

The movement recruits from three directions. Secular antisemites need no Bible; they simply deny Jewish peoplehood. Religious antisemites collapse the everlasting Abrahamic covenant into the conditional Mosaic one, note Israel’s failures, and declare the people cast off—an error the prophets never made and that Paul explicitly rejected. A minority of Jews, some secular and cosmopolitan, some ultra-Orthodox waiting for a Messiah who has not yet come, join the denial from inside the house of Judah. None of these positions can rewrite Genesis 17.

There is even Biblical evidence to suggest that ‘Palestine’ may be one of the 10 nations of the antichrist during the tribulation.

Psalm 83:4-8 explicitly lists “the Philistines” (ancient Gaza Strip inhabitants, modern Palestinian territories) as part of the inner-ring coalition that conspires to “cut off” Israel “from being a nation.” The list includes Edom/Moab/Ammon (Jordan), Gebal/Tyre (Lebanon), and Assur (Syria/Iraq) — the same core geography as the proposed 10-king bloc.

Zechariah 9:5-7 pronounces judgment on Gaza (“Ashkelon shall see it, and fear; Gaza also shall see it, and be very sorrowful”) in the same prophetic sweep that burdens Damascus and the northern powers. If Palestine achieves full UN/international recognition pre-tribulation, it becomes a sovereign entity capable of pledging allegiance to the beast, elevating it from “territory” to “kingdom” status in prophetic terms.

In Islamic eschatology, Greater Sham: Classical hadiths repeatedly describe the Mahdi’s rule centered in “Sham” (greater Syria, encompassing modern Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, and Palestine). Sahih Muslim 2897 and Sunan Abu Dawud collections place the Mahdi’s capital in Damascus/Jerusalem after the conquest of Sham.

Al-Quds (Jerusalem) Focus: Numerous hadiths (e.g., Nuaym ibn Hammad, graded hasan chains) state the Mahdi will pray in Al-Aqsa Mosque and rule from Jerusalem. A sovereign Palestine would be absorbed seamlessly into this caliphate, with Gaza and West Bank leaders pledging bay’ah.

Anti-Dajjal Alliance: The Dajjal (identified here as the real returning Jesus) is opposed most fiercely in Jerusalem/Gaza regions. Palestinian factions (Hamas, Islamic Jihad) already frame resistance as preparation for Mahdi/Isa. Recognition would formalize their role in the Mahdi’s army.

No Resistance Expected: Hadiths describe Sham’s people welcoming the Mahdi (Muslim 2901). A recognized Palestinian state, ideologically Islamist, would enthusiastically join rather than resist. If Palestine gains widespread international recognition as a sovereign nation before the tribulation begins, it has an extremely high probability of becoming one of the 10 kings/toes. It would serve as the southern frontline kingdom in the Antichrist/Mahdi’s confederacy, fulfilling both Psalm 83’s conspiracy and Islamic prophecies of Sham’s unification under the caliphate.

Zechariah 12 described the result long before the modern names existed. Jerusalem would become a cup of trembling and a burdensome stone. All who burdened themselves with it would be cut in pieces, even if all the people of the earth gathered against it. The Lord would defend the inhabitants of Jerusalem and seek to destroy the nations that came against it. The present campaign—political, cultural, religious—is that gathering. It is fueled by a claim the text itself will not sustain.

The land was promised to Isaac and Jacob and their seed as an everlasting possession. The Philistines were foreign settlers from Caphtor who occupied a sliver of coast and then vanished. “Palestine” is a Roman punishment, not a title deed. Everything that follows from the opposite story is built on sand.