I remember disagreeing with The Philadelphia Trumpet magazine’s frequent use of the term “Palestine” when referring to the Holy Land of Israel.
Both Gerald Flurry, editor-in-chief of The Philadelphia Trumpet, and his son, Stephen Flurry, were guilty of using the loaded term “Palestine.”
Gerald Flurry quoted Shmuel Schnitzer lamenting the new Jewish people who are “preparing to deny our [Jewish] rights, both the divine promise and in terms of REFERRING TO THE EARTH BY THE NAME OF ITS PEOPLE, “The Land of Israel ‘- a land belonging to the Children of Israel, from then on and for eternity …” [emphasis mine] and then he himself continues in “The Lost Vision of Israel”, blind to his own hypocrisy, “Let’s take a look at the recent history of Palestine.”
Yeah let’s see what name GOD He gave the land as an inheritance to the Twelve Tribes of Israel. GOD named him after our patriarch ISRAEL. Satan inspired the Romans to mock god and dishonor our Father by trying to erase the name of Israel from the map. “They have said, ‘Come, and let us cut them off from being a nation, so that the name of Israel will no longer be remembered'” (Psalm 83: 4). Why join the enemies of God and Israel? Why give credit to an ILLEGITIMATE name? God forbid Israel become “Palestine”!
Since I truly believe that they wanted to be guided by the Bible, I encouraged them to do so and refer appropriately to the Land of Israel by its GOD ORDERED NAME – Israel!
In fact, I made it public only after I saw that they persisted in their error by writing “An Open Letter to Stephen Flurry on ‘Palestine'” in the November / December 1996 issue of The National Messenger. They seem to now refer to “Judah” or “Israel (Biblical Judah)” instead of the cursed “Palestine”. Hallelujah!
Stephen Flurry and the Philadelphia Church of God
The Great Commission of the Middle East: Reaching the Cities of Judah