Sh'ma Yisrael Adonai Elohaynu Adonai Echad
Hear, Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is One.
Death to Israel... blah blah blah...We are approaching the 40th anniversary of the Israeli conquest of West Bank and Gaza, after Israel was attacked by Jordan, Syria, Egypt and other Arab nations and factions unprovoked, during the Six Day Wars. In these inter-connected wars Israel successfully defended itself and staved off an intended holocaust. Good for them!
Who Owns the Holy Land?
If Israel, Why?
If the Arabs, Why?
Find Out Here:
(Also see my expanded history of the Holy Land, click here)
Now once again antisemitic, misguided and Islam-manipulated activists are yet again preparing to march in DC and elsewhere calling for the death of Israel, or at least for Israel to surrender large portions of its territories. They will be demanding that Israel should trust the Muslims of the region not to kill them given the chance.
Thank God the Israelis have better sense than this! Hopefully the US government still has as well!
These misguided, deceived, and/or hate mongering "peace" protesters will be demanding that the US abandon its loyal ally Israel to its enemies. Antisemitic hate groups like the International Answer will be calling for another Jewish holocaust. The once honorable Jimmy Carter and other antisemites will be demanding Israel surrender Jerusalem and other militarily strategic lands to people intent on murdering Jews and destroying Israel. Well meaning but clearly naive American Jews like Rosanne Barr will be supporting the call for Israel to surrender to the vary terrorists who keep attacking them and threatening to drive them into sea.
Such people will be supporting the foolish and naive theory that the Muslim nations of the region will allow Israel to exist unmolested if only they expose their national jugular vain to their enemies... Just trust them they say!
Somethings never change! Antisemitism rolls on as it always has and much of the so-called peace movement is actively embracing it.
We deride Bush for saying: Surrender your freedom to be free,
And yet the so-called "Peace Movement" says: Let Israel and the Jews die for peace!
Are there any sane people left! Sheesh!
Because of the approach of this date, I'm receiving questions about the conflict, about the Holy Land etc. As usual I'm being condemned as a "Zionist," as "anti-Palestinian," etc. Just to be clear:
The Land Belongs to Israel!
Following is one such question I received through my AllExperts service along with my reply. For those who don't understand the historic aspects of this conflict, this reply might be of interest:
The Promised Land
Question: Do you believe in the myth of the Promised Land?
Don't you believe it was just a figment hardly concocted by a handful
of shrewd people who simply wanted to dispossess the Philistines of
their ancestral land of honey and milk?
The fact that someone promises you something would mean to most of us
who are not under the effect of any hallucination,that you do not
originally possess that thing.
How can God promise to rob an innocent group of people (the
Philistines) of their land and give it to another group who had actually been so
disobedient to Him as to cause Him to curse them and swear to annihilate
them?
Answer: Hi Elizabeth,
I'll be happy to offer my views here. This will be rather long so that
I can more fully explain this controversial situation.
Yes, I do believe that God defined the boundaries of the Holy Land and
gave it to the Jewish people as a birthright for all eternity thousands
of years ago. Allow me to explain.
First, understand that the Jews are no better (and no worse) than any
other people. God didn't give them this land because they were. That's
not what is meant by the term "Chosen people."
After the Universal Flood, which virtually every scripture and ancient
culture agrees happened and which has objective evidence (but not
proof), it is believed by billions of people, including Jews, Christians,
Muslims and others, that the One God chose a man named Abram and his
descendants, (through his wife Sara according to Jews and Christians), to
act as his representatives on earth.
Now, this may be difficult to accept, but consider this: If one
believes in an independent Being who is God in a Personal Form, then believing
that that Being made a conscious choice to use a certain group of
people should not be too difficult accept. Such a Being COULD do this if He
exists and wanted to.
Billions of people of faith, myself included, believe he did so.
Whether that choosing is as I will describe below is of course a question of
faith. But that it could have happened is evident, given the belief in
such a divine Person. There are also historical evidences for this
choosing, but no proof.
Now, according to the Torah (in the biblical book of Genesis) God
approached Abram and his wife Sara and made them an offer. Again, IF one
accepts the authenticity of the Bible, there is no reason to doubt this
particular story contained within it. There is good support for the
Torah's authenticity, but again it can't be proven.
God told Abram and Sara that she would be mother to a child from
Abram's seed and that God would use that child and his descendants to bless
the planet. The promise was, "In thy seed will all the nations of the
earth be blessed." And, "I will bless those who bless you (the Jews) and
I will curse those who curse you.
They accepted the deal.
So, God chose Abram, Sara and their offspring for this important
assignment. Since God chose them, they and their descendants are the "Chosen
People" by definition.
Here's where the whole mess began.
Abram and Sara were very old and had never had any children despite
trying, they wanted them. They tried to get Sara pregnant for a while but
nothing came of it. They therefore concocted a plan rather than
trusting God. They lived in a patriarchal culture and so they decided that
what mattered was that Abram was the father (not that Sara be the mother),
but that wasn't the deal God had offered.
Sara told her Egyptian maid Hagar have sex with Abram and she became
pregnant with a son and named him Ishmael.
Had Abram and Sara observed the deal they made with God, Abram would
never have had sex with Hagar and Ishmael would never have born, and thus
his descendants, the Semitic Arabs, would not have been born. Had they
not been born, they would not have been living in the Holy Land and
most of the wars and battles recorded in the Torah and in the Middle East
today, would never have taken place. Our actions have consequences...
However Ishmael was born.
Later, Sara also became pregnant, as God had said. When she brought
forth her son Isaac, she and Hagar became jealous of each other's sons.
God had said the promise (to bless and redeem the world and send a
Messiah) would come through Sara's descendants. BUT as the eldest son,
tradition dictated that Ishmael should receive the inheritance.
We know from history and anthropology that this dispute is exactly what
would have happened in the situation as described in Genesis. IF we
accept the Torah as historically authentic, there is no reason to question
this part of the story.
As his wife, Sara would have had priority over her servant and so when
she asked Abram to send Hagar and Ishmael away, that is in all
likelihood what Abram would have done. So again, no reason to question this.
Ishmael went out, married, and had children and his family spread
across the region intended by God for Israel. These again are the Semitic
Arabs, the Philistines etc.
Isaac also grew and married. In time according to the Torah God was
pleased with Isaac and changed his name to Israel (he also changed Abram's
name to Abraham). Israel had 12 sons (and a daughter named Dianna).
These 12 sons grew, married and had children and these came to be known as
the 12 tribes of Israel.
Both the descendants of Ishmael and Israel continued in the faith of
their father Abraham for a long time. The history of the 12 tribes of
Israel is recorded in the Tanach (the "Old Testament" and is largely
historically verifiable). The Hebrews/Jews lived constantly in this region
and eventually established two countries in the Promised Land, Israel
and Judah. In time Babylon defeated both countries and the Jews became
slaves. Eventually, around 606 BCE, the Jews were released and allowed to
return to their ancestral homeland and capitol city, Jerusalem.
Rome soon moved in and the Jews lived under Roman rule until 70 CE when
they were forcibly expelled into the diaspora due mainly to attempted
insurrection against Rome. During the time of Jesus, Jerusalem and
Israel was part of a Roman province and not independent.
Meanwhile... the descendants of Ishmael. At some point, we don't know
when, the Haniff, who held to Ishmael's religion, completely merged with
the other peoples in the area and accepted the worship of Baal and
Ashtoroth and other Pagan (nature based) gods. Unlike the Jews, they
abandoned the religion of Abraham and Ishmael. Throughout this period the
Ishmaelites in various forms and the Israelites fought for control of the
land God had given to Israel. Sometimes the Ishmaelites won, sometimes
the Israelites won. They both wanted Isaac's inheritance, the Holy Land
(and hence the blessing of Abraham).
Again, there would have been no Ishmaelites had Abram and Sara
maintained their faith in God's word. God decreed the land belonged to
Isaac/Israel and his descendants for ever and no amount of warfare or
propaganda can change this.
About 600 years after the Jews were expelled from Jerusalem by Rome, a
descendant of Ishmael was born, Muhammad Mustafa. Around 622 CE he
declared himself Allah's final prophet (Allah is Arabic for "God" as is
"Ellah" in Hebrew).
Prophet Muhammad proclaimed himself the final prophet, spoke the
Qua'ran, raised powerful armies, declared that Abraham had built the
mysterious Ka'aba (Cube) in Mecca and that, "There is no god but Allah and
Muhammad is his prophet." The warrior/prophet would henceforth be the only
way to God according to his followers. All who opposed this view were
slaughtered and the Islamic Ummah (Islamic nation) quickly spread
throughout much of the world.
Many of the events recorded in the Bible Muhammad changed. For
instance, Abraham offered up not Isaac but Ishmael. The promise passed through
Ishmael, not Isaac and so on. The religion agree on this period in the
main, only a few of the details were changed by Prophet Muhammad in the
Qu'ran to support their view of the events. The Hebrew/biblical version
predates the Qu'ran by over 1000 years.
The Holy Land and the city of Jerusalem remained largely uninhabited
from 70 CE until the 1930s. There were a few people, a few Jews and a few
Muslims and others who settled there, but no real Muslim or Jewish
civilization emerged there during these 2000 years. The Christian knights
ruled the city for a while and so on.... but the barren area was mainly
all but uninhabited. The Holy One of Israel had left the Holy Land with
His people into the diaspora according to Prophet Isaiah and it became
the haunt of jackals and other desert creatures.
Then, in the late 1800's groups of European Jews led by people like
Theodore Herzl fled the Russian pograms and other persecutions and began
talking about returning to their historic land, Eretz Israel (Land of
Israel). They called their movement Zionism, the intention to return home
to Mount Zion. Several Jews moved back and began farming the harsh
deserts etc. Then, on November 2, 1917, the British foreign minister Arthur
James Belfour with the consent of the British crown promised to return
the land of Palestine to the Jews as a Jewish national homeland.
Britain, which then ruled the area and had legal right to it, as was
internationally recognized, declared and signed the Belfour declaration, but
not much happened until after World War II. The land was just too harsh
and barren for anyone to live there! By 1920 however most of the major
nations, including the US and France, had signed onto the agreement and
Jews were trickling into the barren Israeli deserts.
After WW II Jews from around the world fled home, back to Israel,
harmonious with the agreement of the land's legal owners, the UK, and in
full agreement with UN rulings. Something truly, literally miraculous
happen, the deserts began to bloom and Jews returned and poured their love
into the Land and, moreover, as the God of Israel returned!
At this time, the Arabs in the region began moving into the newly
re-born Israel seeking work. Soon they began calling themselves
"Palestinians" and claiming the land as their own. There is no historical basis for
this claim.
The nation of Israel, harmonious with international treaties, offered
to share their land with local Arabs. They agreed to form two countries,
Israel and Palestine. The Arabs however rejected the offer and demanded
all Jews leave the entire area on pain of death. The Jews refused and
five Arab nations invaded simultaneously. In battles that rivaled those
of the Hebrew Scripture as with regard to miraculous victories, Israel
defeated all of their attackers and secured their land and has been
fighting to maintain it ever since.
Today Israel is not demanding the entire Holy Land God promised
Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Modern Israel occupies only a small fraction of
their rightful land. Nonetheless from that day until our own the Arabs of
the region have remained determined to destroy Israel and wreak genocide
on world Jewry. Muslim leaders like Ahmadinejad of Iran promise to
drive the Jews into the sea.
All of this because Abram and Sara lost faith in God's promise and took
matters into their own hands.
As with most matters of faith, not all of this is provable, as I have
acknowledged. I believed I have presented you with a frank and accurate
description of the situation however. Personally, I am convinced in the
biblical version of these accounts and that Eretz Israel, all of it,
including those lands not currently in Israeli hands, belong the Jewish
people.
Hope this sheds some light on the subject for you.
Write back any time.
~John of AllFaith
JIMMY CARTER IS LARGELY TO BLAME!
Israel is NOT practicing apartheid!
That's as ridiculous as it is antisemitic!
Discuss This on My Blog!
See Also my History of Eretz Israel
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