[SOURCE]
The Middle East is awash with turmoil after a bunch of documents were leaked to the press. Â The documents show what’s been going on behind closed doors during the ‘peace’ negotiations.
This comment however, caught my eye:
YAACOV: We have court documentation that says that this belongs to us so we want to be here whether the Israeli negotiators want it, whether the Palestinian Authority wants it. We’re here because we believe this is where we belong and we believe that God wants us to be here.
Yaacov is a jewish student and he’s moved into a former Arab neighbourhood.
So, Yaacov believes that he can move into the area because
- He belongs there
- God wants him to be there.
Ben Knight – the ABC’s Middle East correspondent missed the obvious next question, “How do you know god wants you to be there”
It’s easy enough to find biblical references to answer this question:
If your outcasts are in the uttermost parts of heaven, from there the LORD your God will gather you, and from there he will take you. And the LORD your God will bring you into the land that your fathers possessed, that you may possess it. And he will make you more prosperous and numerous than your fathers.
It’s nothing but arrogance to assume some deity has given you the land, that your reason to belong there is because some rabid god told a bunch of desert dwellers to go and kill everyone in the land and take it for themselves. Â It seems, that in some peoples minds, it’s still ok to do this. Â It also seems to be one of the many complex reasons behind the desire to have Jews live in Israel. Â They destroyed everyone before, they can do it again. [SOURCE]
If you really want peace in the middle east, it’s imperative that this attitude of it being a god given right to be there is erased.  There is no god to do such a thing, and it’s a shocking reason to kick someone else out of their home, the sense of entitlement is wrong and if we truly believe that jewish people deserve a homeland, then let’s do it properly, without the biblical background, and encourage Israel to be a home for all citizens of the middle east, where they can live together in peace.
Peace. It’s a word that comes up along with religion in conversation often. It has been my experience that no religion really wants this ‘peace’ they so love to talk about so much.
Entitlement, eternal torture, bigotry, discrimination, suffering. That is what religion is about. Never peace.
This religious bigotry has been going on for centuries. We are merely a few bloggers in the year 2011. How are we ever going to bring some sanity to the Middle East? If only a few bloggers could change the course of the world!
Never give up hope!