RE: Global Collapse – Part 4: History of Tensions
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It has been a challenging topic to research and then understand. I appreciate your comment. The Jews have the strongest religious and historical connection to the land of Israel. This is supported by verses found in both the Bible and the Qaran.
For an outsider, it is difficult to fully appreciate how people might connect with a place based on faith.
What adds even more confusion is the position of the anti-Zionist Jews. Many of them being Orthodox. They claim Israel can only be regained miraculously. I don't understand what that would involve or the extent of this belief or interpretation.
The website Jewish Virtual Library does shed some light on this matter.
There is also the issue of the Muslims connection to Jerusalem. Considering they have Mecca, it is hard to image it would have as much significance. I am a little ignorant to their position.
It's not just about faith. It's about history as well. Let's not forget that non-Jews in the land were never forced out of their land. They could live next to Jews. But they didn't like Jewish authority over the land. They wanted another Islamic state, as if the other 20+ Islamic states in the world weren't enough for them.
The anti-Zionist Jews are a fringe. And how are they going to explain their own Bible which says if God scatters, no one can gather. When King Cyrus helped the Jews to go back into the land based on their Zionist request, about 2500 years ago, where was the miracle in that? How was that any different from what happened in 1948? And yet the Jewish Bible says it was God who did that and Cyrus was merely God's servant, doing the will of God.
Muslims have Mecca as you said and Islam was founded in Arabia. Muhammad spent most of his life, if not all of it in Arabia. Not in the land of Israel. Furthermore, historically speaking Muhammed came about ~2000 years after Moses. If we really want to respect the order of history, we again have to give the Jewish people authority over that land, not the Muslims.
Thanks for your informative comment. In regards to 1948. The partition plan proposed by the United Nations but never implemented would have been unworkable. Israel would have been divided into 3 slivers of land each surrounded by long borders with the proposed Arab state/s and Jerusalem would have been isolated. See below.
Considering Israel's location and neighbours, strong border protection and control is essential. This proposed state is almost impossible to defend.
I would argue that it was the 1948 war that enabled Israel to have greater security and ultimately a viable state not the UN. The Arab nations attack on Israel was a massive miscalculation.
Either way, whether it was the UN or the war or a combination, bottom line is that in the Jewish Bible, God takes responsibility for every war including the wars against Israel that leads to the scattering of Jews around the world. Hence, anti-Zionist Jews are a fringe because they really don't have an argument from the Bible whatsoever and if they do, it's weak asf. I'm neither a Jew myself nor an Israeli. I'm probably still biased though because of my Christian faith and its Jewish roots. However, I was not raised Christian. I was actually raised Muslim and was constantly taught to hate Israel.
There are deep problems with all of your assertions. Once Israelis purchased feudal titles of dubious legitimacy from former Ottoman aristocrats, they did kick Palestinians from their homes and family farms, refused to employ them, and began a process of apartheid.
They didn't necessarily want an Islamic state, they wanted independence after being ruled by foreign powers for centuries. The Arabs say Palestinians aren't Arab enough. They are descended from a variety of Semitic people including ancient Israelites.
If you want to respect history, you can't just ignore people who lived there for literally thousands of years.
So you're telling me the people who have descended from ancient Israelites want to change the name of that land to Palestine? A name that was initially given to the land by the Romans in order to humiliate the Jews? Do you know the root of Palestine? It's literally the Philistines in the Bible, spelled and pronounced differently. In Arabic, it's the same pronunciation and spell. They were the most infamous enemies of the Jews from day 1 and they were actually completely defeated about ~2500 ago so bad they disappeared from history for a very long time. You can't find a single reference to them in any writings at the time of Jesus.
Literally everything you wrote is irrelevant to my point.
No it's not. It shows how silly your claim is. Palestine or Palestinian was never a thing before Israel. That's a fact. The only Palestine or Palestinian that was a thing before Israel is the ancient Philistine and most scholars agree they became extinct ~2500 years ago. Foreigners who have moved into the land of Israel are now claiming to be the ancient Philistines in spite of speaking a totally different language, and having a totally different religion and culture. And you say oh they're multicultural, some of them are even descendents of the Israelites but they don't like the name of their descendents, they prefer the name of their ancient enemies. Yeah right.
None of that has any bearing on the merits of the claims of people who lived in the region regardless of its name from the Roman era through the Ottoman era. Your red herring remains irrelevant.
People lived in the region regardless of its name. Some were nomadic. Some were agrarian. Some were urban. Some were Christian. Some were Jewish. Most were Muslim. And they were almost all displaced because generations of feudal plunder had transferred de jure ownership to an Ottoman-influenced political class. None of that was just. But it compounded injustice when Jewish settlers bought these stolen titles and forced people off their lands starting even before WW2. That, not some racial or religious flaw, sows the seeds of hate.
The name of the region still has zero bearing on historical reality.
Again. Nobody was forced out of their homes or land. You're probably referring to those who left their homes/land to join the Arabs to fight Israel and then when they lost the war, Israel didn't let them in. The ones who didn't leave their homes/land to join Arabs to kill the Jews are still in Israel living in their homes/land without any problem. Also, guess what? Many Jews were forced out of Arab nations in the same year and lost their homes/lands without even joining Israel to fight the Arabs. You also need to differentiate between Gaza and the West bank and Israel. Because if you're referring to the perhaps 1% or less Jewish settlers in these regions, you still have to understand that is not part of Israel. You also need to understand that if Arabs didn't fight Israel in 1948, none of this would have had happened and nobody would've been displaced. So yes it has ultimately been about what the name of the land will be and what sort of government will be in power. It's been a war between Islamists and Zionists. The war was started by Islamists not Zionists. And wars are ugly, they lead to people being displaced. They also lead to people getting injured and dying. So what? Blame the ones who started the war which would be Muslims not Jews. Unlike Muslims, Jews came back into their land and shaped a government with political negotiations, not with war. That's why they have the support of most nations except Arab/Muslim nations who rejected the UN vote and started the war.
Two wrongs don't make a right. Arabs expelling Jews does not justify Jews expelling Palestinians. Some of the Jewish settlers did certainly expel Palestinians. How much do you really know about Israel's conflicts, 1948 or otherwise? Note I intend to differentiate between Israel as a government and the Jews as a people, because collectivist blame is dumb and governments do not represent the people as a whole.
I never said two wrongs make a right. Where did I say that? Read again.
Again. Nobody was initially forced out of their homes/lands. The displacements happened after the war which was started by six Arab nations. Displacement is actually not that bad in wars, what's worse is permanent injury and death. Again. Blame those who started the war. Not those who defended themselves. If you have an ounce of humanity. This is not a complicated issue. This is not like ~3000 years ago when Jews attacked first because their god commanded them. This was a completely peaceful return with political negotiations which was rejected by six bullies, six Arab Islamist nations, who started an ugly war, just like Hamas did in October 7th, and continue to play the victim card.
It's good to finally see what the person who's been downvoting my posts is like, but also disappointing. It also makes sense why my series was getting downvoted as it exactly responds to these types of myths.
It's Forrest Gump history. "And then for no reason at all, the Arabs, Egyptians, Persians, and Palestinians decided to hate the Jews and there was a war." Reality is much less black-and-white, and collectivist/nationalist analysis loses all nuance.
I understand that coming from a Christian background it may be hard to understand how important a connection to land is to some other religions, particularly Judaism (also Aboriginal Australians).
But it is absolutely fundamental, as important as belief in Jesus's death and resurrection is to Christians.
Indeed the entire Jewish Bible both religiously and historically revolves around God's promises of land to Abraham and then Moses.
The position of the tiny minority of anti-Zionist Jews is not actually inconsistent with the fundamental importance of The Land of Israel to the Jewish People. They just disagree on whether their can be any secular hand in implementation, not on Divine Promise or the goal.
The Muslims have Mecca and Medina and Jerusalem is clearly a distant third place in importance (having only been mentioned in a dream of Muhammed) and coming historically over 2000 years after the Jewish King David established Jerusalem as the capital of the Jewish People.
Christians should know better because more than half their Bible is the same Jewish Bible or Tanakh. I'm a Christian myself and funny enough I was actually raised Muslim. I think this is ultimately a spiritual battle. You could call it a religious war. Either way, it's not just over a piece of land. It's two religions (Judaism and Islam) clashing over opposing claims attributed to God and as a Christian, I believe God will take the side of Israel, in order to expose the lies of Islam.