August 22, 2006
by: jovial_cynic
(this was a comment I posted on luke's blog regarding the Israeli possession of Israel.)

The "Israel was there first" argument is odd. The native americans were here first. Should they be the rightful owners of this land? With America, we happily agree to "might makes right," because it happens to serve us well.

And it's often about self-interest, right? We accept "might makes right" for our own country, and yet we decried Iraq's invasion of Kuwait. We stayed out of the Bosnia and Croatia conflict, siting that those countries are fighting their own fight, and yet we went into Vietnam to prevent the advance of the Communists. Clearly, the US is protecting it's own interests, and "right" vs "wrong" comes down to what's beneficial for the United States.

When it comes down to it, Israel wasn't the original inhabitant of the Promised Land either. They were instructed by God to kill the inhabitants of Canaan and subsequently occupy it. Much later, when Rome toppled Jerusalem, the land was named Palaestina in AD 135, and after Muslim Arabs conquered the Middle East in the AD 600's, the land was controled by Muslim Arabs who later became known as Palestinians. And then came the Turks in AD 1071, and then the Fatimid rulers of Egypt in AD 1098, and then the Crusaders in AD 1099, and then the Muslim ruler Saladin in AD 1187, and then Napoleon in 1798, etc., etc., etc.

In the most recent possesion of the Holy Lands by Israel, we have a situation where a people took over a land by force... but not by its own force -- it was by the force of the winners of WW2.

So... after all this, who's land is it? I mean, we Christians agree that God promised the land to Israel, but even in our scriptures, Israel was driven out time and time again due to their disobedience.

If (scripturally speaking) land-ownership is dependent on Israel's obedience to God, should Israel currently inhabit the land? If Paul asserts that Israel is currently cut off from God, should they have any current spiritual claim to the land?
np category: religion


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