When did Israel became nation

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Israel did not "become" a nation (need definitions for both) and it is important not to compare apples to oranges. Israel of today has little to do with "Israel" of 3000 years ago. Archeologists at Tel Aviv University showed that city states and kingdoms were routinely made and obliterated in the ancient land of Canaan while the natives survived and continued to live. Ethnic cleansing was only recently practiced (1947-1949). The Israelites evolved from local Canaanites (archeological evidence, not the stories of the bible which were never intended to be taken literally). But even if one is to take the stories of the bible literally, there is plenty of "evidence" in the bible that Hebrews prospered with Adomite and other Canaanites. These are not states or nations in the modern sense. In either case, what is the relevance of this to politics in the Middle East? Christianity arose 2000 years ago well after Judaism but before Islam and that does not add anything to whether Christians need to go back and build a Byzantine state in Palestine. History is important so here goes.

Canaanitic groups are classified into Western Canaanitic languages (Aramaic, Assyrian, Phoenician etc.) and Eastern Canaanitic languages (Arabic and Hebrew which were spoken but not written languages). Northern Canaanites (e.g. Nebateans and Phoenicians) developed the written languages. All these groups lived, fought, interacted, collaborated, etc. but no group was obliterated in history.

Two facts are easily verified as examples. Palestinian villagers especially in Northern Palestine for hundreds of years and until today use the name Cana’an for their children and many have it as a surname. Second, designs on the cloths of villagers (the folkloric symbols) are canaanitic symbols (& are shared by location and by locals who are both christian and muslim). I can site several other examples including ritualistic events that are likely pagan in origin.

The Jebusites (Canaanites) around 3,000 B.C. dwelt on the tract of land "Jebus" which later became Jerusalem? Ur-Shalem (Jerusalem) is a Canaanite word meaning, the house of Salem, the chieftain of the clan of Jebusites. The name Salem is Shalem in the Aramaic language and was also adapted to Arabic and Hebrew (but much later) to indicate peace. Similarly While Arabs and Jews think Bethlehem means house of bread or meat respectively, it is more appropriately house of Laham (the Canaanitic god of the southern hills). The temple of Solomon likely was built on the ruins of the Jebusite temple just like the Aksa was built on the same ruins.

Historically, new religions did this so that they can adapt the locals to the new religion (i.e. you cannot shock them to stop them from going to their holy places but it is possible to change what Campbell calls "the face of God" (i.e. the image). Hence the Kaaba in Mecca is also the someplace that the ancient Pagans worshipped.

Genetically, Palestinian Christians and Muslims are closer to Sephardi Jews than either group is to Ashkenazi Jews who are in turn more turcik (and indo-European- due to significant pool of Khazars who converted to Judaism a few hundred years ago). Ashkenazi thus is not true semites. The use of the word anti-semitic is corrupted as Arabs are Semites and most Jews are not.

 
Israel 1700 years ago
Jacob is thought to have lived sometime around 1700 BC. He was the second son of Isaac (The second patriarch of Israel, the first being his father, Abraham). Jacob also had a twin brother named Esau. Tradition has it that his mother, Rebekah, was already feeling their presence while they were still in her womb, and that the two soon-to-be-born twins often wrestled each other, causing her to have much pain. Seeking an oracle, Rebekah was told that "Two nations are in your womb, and two peoples, born of you, shall be divided: the one shall be stronger than the other, the elder shall serve the younger" (Gen 25:23). Esau was the first to be born, but Jacob followed soon, clasping Esau's heels.
Not much is known about their youths, but one day an important episode takes place, which is also described in the Bible. It is known that while Esau was a skilled hunter, and was stronger, Jacob preferred to stay at home. One day, Esau comes home, exhausted after a hunt, and finds Jacob preparing a pot of lentil soup. Esau asks for some, but Jacob replies "First sell me your birthright" (Gen 25:31). Esau replies "I am about to die; of what use is a birthright to me?" (Gen 25:32). Jacob makes Esau swear away his birthright before giving Esau his soup. Later, when death was approaching Jacob's father Isaac, Jacob was able to pretend to be Esau, and was able to receive his father's blessing. This blessing is of enormous significance, as it gave Jacob the right to inherit the lands of Canaan, and to become the third patriarch of the entire nation of Israel. Hearing of the deceit, Esau threatens to kill Jacob, and as a result it was decided that Jacob should go to Haran, an area in northern Mesopotamia, where his mother's brother was living.

It is during the trip to Haran, that an important event takes place. One night, as Jacob sat down in the wilderness from exhaustion, he saw a vision of angels ascending and descending a ladder suspended between heaven and earth (a.k.a. Jacob's Ladder). On the top rung stood God himself, who affirmed the promise he made to Jacob's grandfather Abraham by saying "The land on which you lie I will give to you and to your descendents; and your descendants shall be like the dust of the earth" (Gen 28:13).

When Jacob neared Haran, he met Rachel, who was working with her father to tend to sheep. Falling in love, he asks for her hand, but Rachel's father tells Jacob that he must first work seven years with him before it will be allowed. After seven years the wedding takes place, but the next morning, Jacob finds out that it was her elder sister Leah who had secretly replaced Rachel during the ceremony. Jacob did not love Leah, and objected. However, Jacob was told that it was tradition for the elder sister to be married first, and that he would have to work another seven years for Rachel's hand. He agreed, and was allowed to marry Rachel in one week. After having served another seven years, Jacob decided to stay on as a shepherd, which he did for a total of 21 years. At God's suggestion, Jacob decides to return to Canaan, and to try to make peace with his brother Esau. One night during this trip back, Jacob finds himself wrestling a mysterious stranger. They struggled for a long time, whereupon the stranger asked Jacob to be released, but Jacob refused unless he first received a blessing. The stranger replied "Your name shall no more be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with men, and have prevailed" (Gen 32:28). Israel means "he who strives with God".

In all, Jacob would have twelve sons, each of which would eventually rule one of the twelve tribes. With Leah he had six sons, Reuben (1), Simeon (2), Levi (3), Judah (4), Zebulun (6), and Issachar (9), and one daughter, named Dinah. He had two sons with Leah's maid (Zilpah), named Gad (7) and Asher (8). He also had two sons with Rachel's maid (Bilhah), named Dan (5) and Naphtali (10). Finally he also had two sons with Rachel, Joseph (11) and Benjamin (12), during the birth of which Rachel died. It is said that Jacob loved his 11th son, Joseph, the most.

However, it was Jacob's favoritism towards Joseph, and Joseph's visions that he would one day lead all his brothers, that left his other brothers conspiring to kill him. One day, according to some accounts around the year 1683 BC, nine of his brothers gather to kill him; "Here comes this dreamer. Come now, let us kill him" (Gen 37:19). Reuben alone objected, and suggested they leave him in a dried up well, intending to return later to rescue him. A short time later a company of Ishmaelites was passing by, and taking this opportunity, Judah sold Joseph into slavery. Reuben was shocked, but could do nothing. Instead the brothers dipped a robe in blood, and took it to their father Jacob, who seeing the bloody robe, concluded "It is my son's robe; a wild beast has devoured him" (Gem 37:33). Meanwhile, the Ishmaelites took Joseph to Egypt and sold him to Potiphar, Captain of the royal guards of Pharaoh. Joseph's unique talent to be able to see and interpret visions and dreams, soon made him a powerful person, and he was appointed governor, and oversaw the grain distribution of the land, which at the time was the second highest office after Pharaoh. He also marries the daughter of Potiphar, and has two sons of his own, Manasseh and Ephraim, who later are adapted by Jacob as his own, and after Jacob dies, and the tribe of Levi is made in charge of the priesthood, both Manasseh and Ephraim were made tribes (hence making 12 tribes again).

Meanwhile, famine spread in the lands where Jacob and his remaining children were living. Jacob sends 10 of his children to Egypt to buy grain. When they arrived in Egypt, they did not recognize their brother Joseph, but he did. The brothers were imprisoned. Learning that his mother had another son, Benjamin, while he was in Egypt, Joseph decides to release his brothers, sell them the grain, and allow them to go if they left one of their brothers as a hostage, and return with Benjamin. Simeon decides to stay.

Returning home, Jacob objects sending Benjamin, saying "You have bereaved me of my children, Joseph is no more, and Simeon is no more, and now you would take Benjamin" (Gen 42:36). Later, after the grain ran out, and the brothers had to return once again to Egypt with Benjamin. This time Joseph reveals his true identity to them, and invites his father and the entire family to Egypt, known as "The Soujourn", which is said to have taken place around the year 1662 BC.

There are many theories about what happened to the 12 tribes of Israel but the prophecy in Ezekiel "Behold, I will take the people of Israel from the nations among which they have gone, and will gather them from all sides, and bring them to their own land, and I will make them one nation in the land, upon the mountains of Israel; and one king shall be king over them all; and they shall be no longer two nations, and no longer divided into two kingdoms" (Ezekiel 37:21-22). I hope this image shows up.. showing the 12 tribes. if not you can find this article where I pulled my information from here

http://www3.tky.3web.ne.jp/~jafarr/The%20Children%20of%20Israel.html

The%20Children%20of%20Israel.html

 
Re: When did Israel come into existence

Hello Friend,

Faithful can really pour in the details (which delights readers such as me), however, I think this question is better asked, when did the seeds of the Hebrew people begin in earnest. Roughly the same time the seeds of the Arab people began. They had the same father...Abram (later called Abraham in certain circles). Looking at the big picture, it reveals that the Arab is the older brother of the Hebrew, or half brother if you wish to be genetically correct. None the less, there is a blood bond between the two. So, the next question might be, who is Abram/Abraham? He seems to be the root cause of both peoples' existence.

v/r

Q
 
Israel did not "become" a nation (need definitions for both)
the word nation has different meanings in religious and political contexts. if you are talking about the word "nation" in the context of politics, it means a nation-state, a sovereign entity and presumably one that is recognised by the UN. the religious term "nation" is a completely different matter, based around a tribal concept of shared ethno-religious identity. it's clearly not purely ethnic, because conversion and intermarriage have (however difficult or undesired) always taken place and it's equally clearly not purely religious, because once there are barriers to group identity, over enough time a set of shared characteristics will emerge. suffice it to say that there are black jews, white jews, jews that look like europeans, jews that look like arabs and indeed the inhabitants of just about any other place we've lived for any length of time.

a "nation", religiously speaking, is actually something which is distinct from a family, clan or tribe, all important distinctions. in the case of the jewish people, we became a nation in egypt, having arrived there as the extended family/clan of the patriarch jacob and leaving as twelve tribes, the traditional number of this new "nation" being 600,000 people plus a "mixed multitude" of hangers-on, other released slaves and egyptian converts, whose essential self-definition took place via the Revelation of the Law at mt. sinai - only after that is it possible to speak of a "nation". confusion of this process with that of the establishment of the modern nation-state of israel, or even that of the biblical kingdoms of israel and judea, is extremely unhelpful and comes about because of translation problems into english, not any internal jewish issue. jewishly speaking, the modern nation-state of israel is the "third jewish commonwealth", the first and second being respectively the biblical kingdoms from the reign of saul through to the destruction of the first Temple in 586 BCE and the re-establishment of a jewish state by ezra and the men of the "great assembly" through to the hasmonean and herodian dynasties and the destruction of the second Temple in 76 CE. i hope this clears that up.

Israel of today has little to do with "Israel" of 3000 years ago.
in one sense that's very true. in another sense, the parallels are striking, particularly given the poor behaviour, idolatry, immorality and general bad behaviour of the "nation" in the first Temple period. that's not even a controversial statement - the prophets were sent by G!D precisely because the israelites were so sinful, to punish them and get them to behave properly in accordance with the Torah. ultimately, however, the first Temple was destroyed because of our immorality and sinfulness.

Archeologists at Tel Aviv University showed that city states and kingdoms were routinely made and obliterated in the ancient land of Canaan while the natives survived and continued to live.
the Tanakh certainly agrees with that.

Ethnic cleansing was only recently practiced (1947-1949).
whoa! from a perfectly reasonable line of enquiry we suddenly turn right into israel-bashing. for a start, even if many of the arabs that left in that period were driven out by hardliners, there is plenty of extremely well-documented evidence that many were encouraged to leave by the surrounding arab nations as a temporary measure whilst they "pushed the jews into the sea", with the promise that they would be able to return in a couple of weeks. as we all know, this return never materialised, because the israelis won the ensuing war. if it's "ethnic cleansing" you want to talk about, why are we only talking about israel? if you want to talk about ethnic conflict in the middle east, i am quite willing to bring in the civil war in lebanon, the black september palestinian-jordanian uprising, the iran-iraq war, the suppression of fundamentalism in hafez assad's syria by the destruction of hama, saddam's campaigns against the marsh arabs and the kurds - not to mention the jewish populations that were "ethnically cleansed", as you put it, from iraq, syria, lebanon, egypt and other places in the arab world. israel took in the jewish refugees. the arab countries kept their "brothers" in camps and - guess what - they're still there.

The use of the word anti-semitic is corrupted as Arabs are Semites and most Jews are not.
this old chestnut is straight out of the "Big Book Of How To Bash Israel Without Being Accused Of Anti-Semitism." do me a favour. the word "antisemitic" is a word which is clearly defined in english as "prejudice against jews", not prejudice against "semites". by this definition, arabs can't be accused of antisemitism, which is extremely useful i expect.

let's cut to the chase here. forget all this archaeological/historical argument - that's all smoke to obscure the basic thrust of your not-so-subtle argument, which is to imply that ethnically, the majority of israelis are of european descent and therefore are interlopers with no right to political self-determination in an area that morally belongs to people who are descended from the 'original' inhabitants. you then cover yourself from accusations of antisemitism and conclude by saying that sephardim (of which i am one) are basically arabs anyway, so presumably they can go back to being dhimmis under arab rule.

now, if you apply this same set of criteria to turn the clock back by 2000 years, the english have to leave and go back to germany, scandinavia, the irish have to go back to spain, blacks all have to go back to africa and everyone white has to leave south america, australia and so on. look, this is a patently ridiculous attempt to redefine the right of people to national self-determination with, of course the israelis as the first on the boat. do me a favour and let's talk about something more constructive - i'm not here to have this particular argument, "friend" - the situation is not going to be resolved by people writing propaganda on the internet. and i sure as hell know that nobody in the arab world wants to have their jewish community back - except, ironically, colonel qadaffi. call me a cynic, but i don't think my family will be welcomed back to baghdad, mosul and kirkuk any time soon.

b'shalom

bananabrain
 
Israel did not "become" a nation (need definitions for both)
the word nation has different meanings in religious and political contexts. if you are talking about the word "nation" in the context of politics, it means a nation-state, a sovereign entity and presumably one that is recognised by the UN. the religious term "nation" is a completely different matter, based around a tribal concept of shared ethno-religious identity. it's clearly not purely ethnic, because conversion and intermarriage have (however difficult or undesired) always taken place and it's equally clearly not purely religious, because once there are barriers to group identity, over enough time a set of shared characteristics will emerge. suffice it to say that there are black jews, white jews, jews that look like europeans, jews that look like arabs and indeed the inhabitants of just about any other place we've lived for any length of time.

a "nation", religiously speaking, is actually something which is distinct from a family, clan or tribe, all important distinctions. in the case of the jewish people, we became a nation in egypt, having arrived there as the extended family/clan of the patriarch jacob and leaving as twelve tribes, the traditional number of this new "nation" being 600,000 people plus a "mixed multitude" of hangers-on, other released slaves and egyptian converts, whose essential self-definition took place via the Revelation of the Law at mt. sinai - only after that is it possible to speak of a "nation". confusion of this process with that of the establishment of the modern nation-state of israel, or even that of the biblical kingdoms of israel and judea, is extremely unhelpful and comes about because of translation problems into english, not any internal jewish issue. jewishly speaking, the modern nation-state of israel is the "third jewish commonwealth", the first and second being respectively the biblical kingdoms from the reign of saul through to the destruction of the first Temple in 586 BCE and the re-establishment of a jewish state by ezra and the men of the "great assembly" through to the hasmonean and herodian dynasties and the destruction of the second Temple in 76 CE. i hope this clears that up.

Israel of today has little to do with "Israel" of 3000 years ago.
in one sense that's very true. in another sense, the parallels are striking, particularly given the poor behaviour, idolatry, immorality and general bad behaviour of the "nation" in the first Temple period. that's not even a controversial statement - the prophets were sent by G!D precisely because the israelites were so sinful, to punish them and get them to behave properly in accordance with the Torah. ultimately, however, the first Temple was destroyed because of our immorality and sinfulness.

Archeologists at Tel Aviv University showed that city states and kingdoms were routinely made and obliterated in the ancient land of Canaan while the natives survived and continued to live.
the Tanakh certainly agrees with that.

Ethnic cleansing was only recently practiced (1947-1949).
whoa! from a perfectly reasonable line of enquiry we suddenly turn right into israel-bashing. for a start, even if many of the arabs that left in that period were driven out by hardliners, there is plenty of extremely well-documented evidence that many were encouraged to leave by the surrounding arab nations as a temporary measure whilst they "pushed the jews into the sea", with the promise that they would be able to return in a couple of weeks. as we all know, this return never materialised, because the israelis won the ensuing war. if it's "ethnic cleansing" you want to talk about, why are we only talking about israel? if you want to talk about ethnic conflict in the middle east, i am quite willing to bring in the civil war in lebanon, the black september palestinian-jordanian uprising, the iran-iraq war, the suppression of fundamentalism in hafez assad's syria by the destruction of hama, saddam's campaigns against the marsh arabs and the kurds - not to mention the jewish populations that were "ethnically cleansed", as you put it, from iraq, syria, lebanon, egypt and other places in the arab world. israel took in the jewish refugees. the arab countries kept their "brothers" in camps and - guess what - they're still there.

The use of the word anti-semitic is corrupted as Arabs are Semites and most Jews are not.
this old chestnut is straight out of the "Big Book Of How To Bash Israel Without Being Accused Of Anti-Semitism." do me a favour. the word "antisemitic" is a word which is clearly defined in english as "prejudice against jews", not prejudice against "semites". by this definition, arabs can't be accused of antisemitism, which is extremely useful i expect.

let's cut to the chase here. forget all this archaeological/historical argument - that's all smoke to obscure the basic thrust of your not-so-subtle argument, which is to imply that ethnically, the majority of israelis are of european descent and therefore are interlopers with no right to political self-determination in an area that morally belongs to people who are descended from the 'original' inhabitants. you then cover yourself from accusations of antisemitism and conclude by saying that sephardim (of which i am one) are basically arabs anyway, so presumably they can go back to being dhimmis under arab rule.

now, if you apply this same set of criteria to turn the clock back by 2000 years, the english have to leave and go back to germany, scandinavia, the irish have to go back to spain, blacks all have to go back to africa and everyone white has to leave south america, australia and so on. look, this is a patently ridiculous attempt to redefine the right of people to national self-determination with, of course the israelis as the first on the boat. do me a favour and let's talk about something more constructive - i'm not here to have this particular argument, "friend" - the situation is not going to be resolved by people writing propaganda on the internet. and i sure as hell know that nobody in the arab world wants to have their jewish community back - except, ironically, colonel qadaffi. call me a cynic, but i don't think my family will be welcomed back to baghdad, mosul and kirkuk any time soon.

i don't see the state of israel through rose-tinted spectacles. they have a lot to sort out and a lot of changes to be made. but if you want to sneak around the internet trying to contribute to the international demonisation of israel and the delegitimisation of the right of the jewish people to self-determination, you're going to get short shrift from me. however, if you want to talk about how we can learn to live in peace with each other, then i am more than happy to start to build this relationship.

b'shalom

bananabrain
 
Something interesting I found.

The Islamic Threat To Israel (Part 1) - Dave Hunt

That vicious anti-Semitism would pursue the Jews worldwide throughout history is one of many prophecies about Israel (Dt 28:37; Neh 1:8; 2 Ch 7:20; Jer 24:9; 25:11; 29:18-19; 44:8; Amos 9:9, etc.) that God points to as proof that He is the one true God, that the Bible is His Word, and that the Jews are His chosen people (Is 42:8-9; 43:10; 46:9-10; 48:5, etc.). From a human point of view, there is no rational ground for such persistent, widespread anti-Semitism; yet this prophecy has come true with a vengeance. The only explanation is found in the Bible: the Jews are God's chosen people and under His judgment for their rebellion against Him (Dt 28:15-68; 29:24-28; 30:17-20, etc.).

There is a further obvious reason for this universal anti-Semitism: hatred of Jews and Israel is inspired of Satan because his only hope to escape eternal doom is to destroy them. This he must do to save himself from God's wrath. Had Satan been able to destroy the Jews before Christ came, he would have prevented the birth of the Messiah, the salvation of mankind, and his own defeat through the sacrifice of the Son of God for mankind's sins. Moreover, for promising a Messiah and a salvation that never came, God would have been proved a liar and thus could not righteously have punished Satan.

Of course, the Messiah came and defeated Satan, "tast[ing] death for every man" (Heb 2:9) and bearing "our sins in his own body on the tree" (1 Pt 2:24). Countless multitudes have been redeemed and will spend eternity in the Father's house of "many mansions" because of having received the Lord Jesus Christ as their Savior. But Christ's defeat of Satan through His death and resurrection did not end the battle between God and Satan for the hearts, minds, and eternal destiny of mankind. That battle continues to rage-and Israel is at its center.

The God of Ishmael?

The God of the Bible is called "the God of Israel" 203 times. Never is He called the God of any other people-and certainly never is He called the God of Ishmael or of the Arabs. He further declares, "I AM the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob: this is my name for ever, and this is my memorial unto all generations" (Ex 3:13-16). Twelve times this name is given to God. Christ argued the resurrection of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (and thus of all believers) from this title, declaring that "God is not the God of the dead but of the living" (Mt 22:31-32).

The entire land of Canaan (which became Israel) was promised to Abraham and to his seed for ever (Gen 12:7; 13:15, 17:19; Ex 6:8; Lev 25:23). Who can claim to be this "seed"? Islam teaches that it was Ishmael, not Isaac, who was the "son of promise" and was offered by Abraham upon the altar. Ishmael was the firstborn, and thus the Arabs, who claim descent from him, are adamant that they-not the Jews-are the rightful heirs to God's promise of the land of Canaan. Of course, Ishmael was not the son God promised, but the product of Abraham's and Sarah's unbelief. Instead of being born to Sarah, Abraham's wife, his mother was Hagar, Sarah's maid.

The Bible makes it very clear in many ways that the promised son was Isaac and that he and his descendants were the rightful heirs to God's promises to Abraham. Apparently content with Ishmael whom he loved, Abraham desired no other son (Gen 17:15-18). But God insisted that He would give Abraham a son through his wife, Sarah, that his name would be Isaac, and that he would be the heir to the promises and to the land (17:19-21). Furthermore, the true heirs to the promises would be slaves in a foreign land for 400 years (Gen 15:13). This never happened to the Arabs, but only to the Jews, who, during this isolation, did not intermarry with non-Jews but became an identifiable ethnic group, were led en masse into the Promised Land, and we know who their descendants are today. In contrast, Ishmael's descendants intermarried at least with Midianites (Jdg 8:1, 12, 22, 24) and with those of Esau (Gn 28:9) who, in turn, intermarried with Hittites (26:34).

In the beginning, the Qur'an called Jews and Christians the "people of the book" and honored much of the Bible as inspired of the true God. When Muhammad turned against these people, however, the tone of the Qur'an changed. The claim is made today that the Bible was perverted in order to make it seem that the Jews were the heirs. Of course, we have Bible manuscripts both before and after Muhammad, and they are identical. In fact, the Qur'an itself repeatedly declares that the Jews are Allah's chosen people to whom he gave the Promised Land:

We made a covenant of old with the Children of Israel (Surah 5:70); We brought the Children of Israel across the [Red] sea, and Pharaoh with his hosts pursued themÉand we verily did allot unto the Children of Israel a fixed abode (10:91, 94); [Pharaoh] wished to scare them from the land, but we drowned him and those with him [in the Red Sea] all together. And we said unto the Children of Israel dwell in the land" (17:103-104); we delivered the Children of Israel from Pharaoh. We chose them, purposely, above all creatures (44:30-32); we favored them above all peoples (45:16); Remember Allah's favor to youÉ. HeÉgave you what he gave no other of his creatures. O my people, go into the Holy Land which Allah hath ordained for you (95:20-21), etc.

"Palestine"?

In spite of such Qur'anic passages, Islam claims that "Palestine" belongs to the Arab descendants of Ishmael. This is the basis of the hatred Muslims have toward Israel and of their determination to exterminate its people and to possess all of Israel for themselves. In fact, "Palestine" is not mentioned once in the Qur'an-very strange, considering the importance Muslims attach to it today.

That spurious claim is further "legitimized" through a people who today call themselves "Palestinians." They claim descent from the "original Palestinians" and that, therefore, the entire land of "Palestine" is theirs, but is being unlawfully occupied by Jews. They demand all of this land as their possession. Such a claim is fraudulent for many well-established reasons.

The land to which God brought Abraham (at this time called Abram), and which He gave to him and to his heirs, was called "Canaan" (Gen 12:5, 6-8; 13:7-17, etc.). There was no such land as Palestine and no such people as Palestinians. Its early inhabitants were Kenites, Kenizites, Kadmonites, Hittites, Perizites, Rephaims, Amorites, Canaanites, Girgashites, and Jebusites (Gen 15:19-21). God never promised anything called "Palestine" to Abraham and to his heirs. The only land He promised was Canaan: "And I will give unto thee, and to thy seed after thee all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession; and I will be their God (Gen 17:8); Be ye mindful always the covenant which he made with Abraham, and of his oath unto Isaac; And hath confirmed the same to Jacob for a law, and to Israel for an everlasting covenant, Saying, Unto thee will I give the land of Canaan, the lot of your inheritance" (1 Chr 16:15-19).

Even had there been a land of Palestine and "Palestinians," the Arabs could not possibly be descended from them. They claim descent from Ishmael, who was certainly not a "Palestinian." His father, Abraham, was from Ur of the Chaldees, and his mother, Hagar, was an Egyptian. Neither of them was one of the "original inhabitants of Canaan," nor even remotely related to such a people. The land was already settled when Abraham with his wife, Sarah, and her maid, Hagar, arrived there.

Furthermore, as late as the 1950s Arabs refused to be called Palestinians. To the British Peel Commission in 1937, a local Arab leader testified, "There is no such country as Palestine. 'Palestine' is a term the Zionists invented." Professor Philip Hitti, Arab historian, testified to an Anglo-American Committee of inquiry in 1946, "There is no such thing as Palestine in history-absolutely not!" To the UN Security Council in 1956, Ahmed Shukairy declared, "It is common knowledge that Palestine is nothing but southern Syria." Eight years later, in 1964, Shukairy became the founding chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization. No "Palestinian," like Arafat, he was born in Cairo.

Abraham settled in Hebron in the land of Canaan (Gen 13:18; 23:2, 19; 35:27; 37:14, etc.). Everyone knows where Hebron and Canaan were located then and now-nowhere near Mecca in Saudi Arabia. Yet the Qur'an and Islam claim that Abraham and Ishmael together built the Ka'aba. This is pure fabrication-as is the claim in the Qur'an that a Samaritan built the golden calf in the wilderness, 700 years before Samaritans even existed.

Ishmael was born after Abraham had lived in Hebron for ten years. Fourteen years later, Isaac was born in Hebron to Abraham and his wife, Sarah. Ishmael mocked Isaac, and Sarah banished him and his mother, Hagar (Gen 21:10-20). From that time onward, Ishmael was no longer part of Abraham's household but lived far away "in the wilderness of Paran" (21:21). Indeed, God did not consider him to be Abraham's son! God told Abraham: "Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovestÉand offer him [as] a burnt-offering" (Gen 22:1-2).

Thirty-seven years after giving birth to Isaac, at the age of 127, Sarah died (23:1). Abraham was still in Hebron of Canaan, where he had lived more than 70 years. He purchased the cave of Machpelah from Ephron the Hittite (23:1-20) and there he buried Sarah. Thirty-eight years later, at the age of 175, Abraham died and was buried in Machpelah next to Sarah. After Abraham's death, Isaac continued to live in Hebron in the land of Canaan another 110 years. One by one, Isaac, Rebekah, Jacob, and Leah all died and were buried in the family tomb, the cave of Machpelah-but not Ishmael. No Arab or Muslim was ever buried there.

David was first crowned king in Hebron and ruled there over Judah 7½ years before moving his throne to Jerusalem. Hebron is of great significance to the Jews. Yet Muslims built a mosque at Machpelah, claim the burial place of Jewish patriarchs as their own, forbid access to Jews, have periodically slaughtered and expelled Jews from Hebron, and desire to make it Jew-free today. They also claim that Jerusalem and the entire land of Israel have always belonged to them, that no Jews ever lived there, and that the Israelis are occupying Arab land! Incredibly, the world accepts this lie as the basis for forcing upon Israel a fraudulent "peace" in the Middle East.

Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and their families lived for more than 300 years in the land of Canaan, which God had promised to them and to their descendants. (Arabs never lived there in any numbers until after the seventh-century A.D. Muslim invasion of Israel.) Jacob and his family temporarily moved to Egypt because of a famine in Canaan, but remained there 400 years and became the slaves of the Egyptians, then were brought back to conquer Canaan as God had foretold, establishing them as the heirs of God's promises to Abraham (Gen 15:13-14).

Thereafter Canaan was known as the land of Israel, which it is called 31 times in Scripture. Its kings ruled from Jerusalem over a vast empire stretching from the Sinai to the Euphrates, until they were conquered by the Babylonians around 600 B.C. and scattered to many nations, as God had warned. Thus, for 300 years before Egypt and about 1,000 years thereafter-a total of 1,300 years-the Jews dwelled in their own land, the land of Israel. It is an insult to the God of Israel and to His chosen people to call Israel "Palestine"! Please don't encourage this lie!

Ishmael's descendants never lived in Canaan. Most of them settled in the Arabian Peninsula. It would not be until the seventh century, through the Islamic invasions, that Arabs would come in any significant numbers into the land of Israel, which in A.D. 135 the Roman conquerors (after rebuilding Jerusalem as a pagan city dedicated to Jupiter) had angrily renamed Provincia Syria-Palestina after Israel's ancient enemies, the Philistines.

continued
 
The Islamic Threat To Israel (Part 2) - Dave Hunt

A Sad History

Chased out of their land under God's judgment in the Babylonian dispersion, and later twice by the Romans, Jews always returned to live there. This despised people occupied Israel for another 2,500 years continuously since their return from Babylon (thus for nearly 4,000 years, beginning with Abraham and Isaac), though most of that time they have suffered under the oppressive heel of various conquerors.

Since Israel was renamed by the Romans, its inhabitants have been known as "Palestinians." Who were they? Jews, of course. Chase them out and they return to the land God gave to their forebears. In World War II, Britain had a volunteer brigade known as "The Palestinian Brigade"-all Jews. The Arabs were fighting on Hitler's side. There was the Palestinian Symphony Orchestra, a Jewish orchestra, and the Palestinian Post, a Jewish newspaper. Arabs refused to be known as "Palestinians" and declared that if there were such a people, they were Jews.

Sadly, Israel had gone into idolatry and rebellion and thus forfeited for a time the full blessing God had promised to the patriarchs. Israel has been under God's judgment from the days of Moses to the present time. Her restoration, however, is assured-but only by God's grace, not by her merits. Scripture makes that fact clear. For example: "The Lord thy God hath chosen thee to be a special people unto himself, above all people that are upon the face of the earth because the Lord loved you and because he would keep the oath which he had sworn unto your fathers. I do not this for your sakes, O house of Israel, but for mine holy name's sake, which ye have profaned among the heathen be ashamed and confounded for your own ways, O house of Israel" (Dt 7:7-8; Ezek 36:22, 32, etc.).

God's Remarkable Promise

Dozens of times in His Word, Yahweh has promised that in spite of their being hated, persecuted, and killed as no other people, and in spite of their being under His severe discipline, He would preserve the Jews from total destruction (Jer 30:10-1; 46:27-28, etc.). He would finally establish them back in their own land as an identifiable, ethnic people with the Messiah reigning over them on the throne of His father David (Jer 31; Ezek 34, 36, 37, etc.). God's integrity is tied to the ultimate restoration of Israel to her own land, never to be displaced again. Satan must destroy Israel in order to discredit God and prevent his own eternal punishment.

For Satan to be defeated, it is not enough for individual Jews to survive. Israel must exist as a nation in her own land: "Thus saith the Lord, which giveth the sun for a light by day, and the ordinances of the moon and of the stars for a light by night, which divideth the sea when the waves thereof roar if those ordinances depart from before me then the seed of Israel also shall cease from being a nation before me for ever" (Jer 31:35-36). There is only one nation and one people-not Arabs or anyone else but the Jews alone-to whom God ever gave a land and specific perpetual promises.

The delusion of "ten lost tribes," if true, would mean that God could never restore Israel as He promised, because most of His chosen people would have been absorbed into the Gentile world. That ten tribes were not lost is clear. In the revival under Josiah 100 years after the ten tribes had been carried away into Assyria (2 Ki 15:29; 17: 4-6, 17-23, etc.), the remnants of Israel who had returned from Assyria kept the Passover together with Judah (2 Ch 34:1-35:19, etc.).

Christ told His disciples, "When the Son of man shall sit in the throne of his glory, ye also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel" (Mt 19:28). Paul reminded King Agrippa, "Unto which promise our twelve tribes, instantly serving God day and night, hope to come" (Acts 26:7). Likewise, James wrote "to the twelve tribes which are scattered abroad" (Jas 1:1).

And so it is with Replacement Theology. It is just one more form of anti-Semitism, which, if true, makes God a liar and Satan victorious.

"If They Don't Convert, Kill Them!"

Concerning anti-Semitism, one thinks immediately of Hitler and the Holocaust. Centuries before he was born, however, a far worse and more persistent anti-Semitism was conceived in the form of Islam. Its founder, Muhammad, was born in Mecca into the Quraish tribe around A.D. 571. They were the guardians of the Ka'aba, an idol temple filled with some 360 images of various gods. Allah (a contraction of Al-ilah, lit. "the chief god") was recognized as the chief of the idols in the Ka'aba and was the official god of Muhammad's tribe.

Through alleged revelations from the "angel Gabriel," Muhammad claimed that Allah was the only god, and that he was Allah's only messenger/prophet. When his fellow Meccans would not accept his "revelations," Muhammad fled to the town of Yathrib. There he established himself through more than 25 murders of those who opposed him. Many of these victims were poets who wrote verse against him and were doomed by a timely revelation that all poets were inspired of Satan (Surah 26:221-27))

With the plunder from successful attacks upon passing caravans, Muhammad gradually built the power base that he had lacked in Mecca. From that time onward, Islam became an increasingly vicious religion that Muhammad imposed with the sword upon expanding areas of Arabia. He murdered all who would not submit to his authority as Prophet.

Yathrib had been founded by Jews. Muhammad shared his "revelations" with them and also with the Christians living in the vicinity. When they would neither accept Allah as the only true God nor Muhammad as His prophet, he turned against the Christians and Jews, killing all who refused to become Muslims and were unable to escape. Every male Jew of fighting age in Yathrib was slaughtered and their bodies buried under the marketplace. Women and children were taken as "wives" or slaves. The name of the town was changed to Medina, which means "city of the prophet." Here Muhammad himself was buried and his tomb remains to this day.

In A.D. 628, Muhammad approached Mecca with some of his followers, all new Muslims. He wanted to join the pagans in their pilgrimage to the Ka'aba on what is known as the Hajj. Remember that the Ka'aba was at that time filled with idols, the chief of which was Allah. Muhammad and his Muslim followers intended to join the pagans in the same superstitious rituals that their ancestors had followed for centuries!

"Peace! Peace!"

At that time the Meccans were too strong for Muhammad and turned him back. However, they were anxious to make peace with this powerful and violent enemy and entered into one of the most important agreements in Islamic history, the Treaty of Hudaybiyah, a Ten-year Ceasefire, called a Hudna. That document set the precedent for Islam ever since. No Muslim leader has the power to go over Muhammad's head to make real peace with non-Muslims. Only a "ceasefire" can be engaged, and that for no longer than ten years. The purpose is not genuine peace but to gain time and advantage to eventually conquer the unsuspecting enemy. This has been Arafat's and the PLO's intent in the entire "peace process."

This treaty allowed Muhammad and his followers to join the Hajj the following year, on the condition that Muhammad acknowledge that he was not the prophet of Allah. Muhammad swallowed his pride and signed. Thus in 629 he came with his Muslim followers, entered Mecca and joined with the pagan Arabs in going seven times around the Ka'aba filled with idols, kissing the dark stone in one corner, and touching another stone in the Yamani corner each time. The new Muslims, with Muhammad at their head, joined in all of the other rituals, climbing nearby Mt as-Safa, then running back and forth seven times to the summit of as-Marwah, supposedly commemorating Hagar's search for water. They climbed Mount Arafat, hurried to Muzdalifah, a place between Mina and Arafat in time for sunset prayer.

The next day, along with the pagans, the new Muslims proceeded to Wadi Mina, where seven stones were thrown at each of three pillars representing Satan. And so it went. These ancient pagan rituals (the full details are too long to recite here) were all carried over into Islam and are practiced to this day along with Ramadan as it had been observed by Arab tribes for centuries before Islam. The Qur'an refers to "The month of Ramadan in which was revealed the Qur'an..." (2:185).

Muhammad's first three attacks on caravans were unsuccessful. Then a timely "revelation" declared that Allah allowed Muslims to fight during that "holy month." Pagan Arabs had long set Ramadan apart for peace. This "revelation" had given the Muslims the advantage of a surprise attack and had brought Muhammad's first success, March 16, 624.

Two years after signing the Treaty of Hudaybiyah, A.D. 630, Muhammad had the necessary power and as noted above took over Mecca. For a time he allowed the pagans to continue to practice the Hajj, joining with the new Muslims in its rituals, then gave them four months to convert to Islam or be killed. Thereafter, only Muslims could approach Mecca and the Ka'aba, and that is the case today. Surah 3:96-97 claims that the Ka'aba was "the first Sanctuary appointed to mankind...where Abraham stood up to pray; and...pilgrimage [hajj] to the House is a duty unto Allah for mankind, for him who can find a way thither."

Muhammad died in A.D. 632, poisoned by the widow of a man he had murdered. Having been forced into Islam by the sword, much of Arabia tried to defect. Muhammad, however, had said, "Whoever relinquishes his faith, kill him!" This is the law still practiced in Muslim countries today.

Continued
 
The Islamic Threat To Israel (Part 3) - Dave Hunt

His Legacy Lives On

In obedience to Muhammad, successor and father-in-law, Abu Bakr, and loyal Muslim warriors killed about 70,000 Arabs, former Muslims, in the "Wars of Apostasy." Thus Arabia was forced back into Islam once again.

Thereafter, under Abu Bakr and succeeding caliphs, Islam spread swiftly by the sword from France all the way to China-"defensive" wars, of course. Millions were killed by the conquering Muslim armies. There is no way to "explain" away today's suicide bombers and other Muslim terrorists as a handful of extremists. This is Islam as Muhammad and his successors established and practiced it from the beginning and down through the centuries. Historians describe the conquest of India as "the bloodiest story in history." There Muslims killed more Hindus, Buddhists, and Sikhs than Hitler killed Jews. The Taj Mahal was built by a Muslim mogul with 20,000 slave laborers.

Foundational to Islam is the declaration Muhammad made: "Allah has commanded me to fight against all people until all people confess that Allah is the true god and Muhammad is his prophet." The entire world is divided by Islam into Dar al-Islam (the house of peace) and Dar al-Harb (the house of war). There is perpetual Jihad by Islam against Dar al-Harb. There can never be "peace" until Islam has subjected the entire world to Allah. Verses advocating fighting to take over the world for Islam (of which there are more than 100) include the following: 2:190-193, 210, 224; 4:74-76, 89, 101; 5:36, 54; 8:12, 17, 59-60, 65; 9:5, 14, 29, 41, 123; 47:4, etc.

Muhammad also declared, as recorded in the Sahih Al-Bukhari Hadith, "The last day will not come until the Muslims confront the Jews and the Muslims destroy them. In that day Allah will give a voice to the rocks and the trees and they will cry out, 'Muslim, there is a Jew hiding behind me. Come and kill him!'" This is not an obscure teaching from Muhammad, but the very foundation of Islam, taught to Muslims through the centuries from their earliest years.

As a result, ever since the Muslim conquest of the Middle East, Jews have suffered in Muslim countries from inhumane treatment and periodic bursts of violence that left many of them dead or seriously wounded. Take only one country, Morocco, as an example of what occurred everywhere under Islam. Jews were forced to live in ghettos called mellahs. One historian writes that rape, looting, burning of synagogues, destruction of Torah scrolls and murder were "so frequent that it is impossible to list them." As only one instance of many, in Fez, in A.D.1032, about 6,000 Jews were murdered and many more "robbed of their women and property." In 1066, after Islam took over Spain, the Jews of Granada were massacred-and that fate periodically overtook those who would not bow to Islam.

The fierce persecution of 1640, in which even women and children were murdered, was called the "al-Khada." Under Muslims, Jews suffered "such repression, restriction and humiliation as to exceed anything in Europe." Continuing that tradition, although there were no Jews in his country and none are allowed to enter to this day, Saudi Arabia's King Ibn Saud said, "for a Muslim to kill a Jew...ensures him an immediate entry into Heaven...." Diabolical motivation indeed!

Home, Not-so-sweet Home

On May 14, 1948, Israel declared itself an independent nation once again. Israel's Proclamation of Independence stated: "We extend our hand to all neighboring States and their peoples in an offer of peace...and appeal to them to establish bonds of cooperation and mutual help with the sovereign Jewish people settled in its own land...placing our trust in the Almighty...." That olive branch was trampled by the regular armies of at least five Arab nations attacking Israeli settlers in what they described as a war of extermination. That to exterminate Israel is required by Islam (no Arab map shows Israel's existence) makes real peace in the Middle East impossible-but political correctness won't admit it.

More than 800,000 Jews fled from Muslim lands to Israel for refuge, leaving behind virtually everything they had possessed. This was almost double the number of Arab refugees who fled from Israel during the war of independence. Yet these Jewish refugees who fled persecution and slaughter are ignored in the media. For example, in 1948 there were about 265,000 Jews in Morocco, today there are about 5,000. There were about 140,000 Jews in Algeria, while today there are none. There were about 135,000 in Iraq, 75,000 in Egypt, and 30,000 in Syria, with only about 100 remaining in each of these countries.

The Arabs who fled Israel in 1948 (in spite of Israel's urgent invitation to remain to build a new country together) did so at the insistence of the Arab military. They were warned that those who remained would be considered traitors to the Arab cause. Most of those who fled never saw an Israeli soldier. They are the only "refugees" in the Middle East as far as the world is concerned and to whom all the sympathy is given. Jewish refugees count for nothing. The families of those who did not flee comprise about 25 percent of Israel's citizens today and have full voting rights. Some are even members of the Knesset, in spite of their opposition to Israel's existence. In stark contrast, no Jew can be a citizen of any Muslim country, where the few remaining have almost no rights.

One would expect that the Jewish refugees, numbering about twice as many at the time and having fled indescribable persecution in Muslim lands, would be more than a fair exchange for the Arab refugees. Jews would never want to go back to these Muslim lands, and have been well absorbed into normal Israeli life. But the Arab "refugees" (in spite of the Arabs possessing 700 times the land given to Israel, and with vast sums of oil money available for assistance) have been deliberately kept in squalid camps as a festering sore to support Islam's controversy with Israel. They have multiplied into millions and would literally destroy Israel if the world could ever force Israel to receive them back. On October 11, 1949, Egyptian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Saleh el-Din, declared that in demanding the return of the refugees to Palestine [i.e., Israel], "the Arabs intend that they shall return as masters.... More explicitly: they intend to annihilate the state of Israel."

Why the Jews?

In the last century there were more than 100 million displaced refugees (about 15 million in the creation of India and Pakistan). None ever go back nor does the United Nations concern itself in any attempt to send them back. This is the rule and practice. Ah, but there is one exception-the "Palestinians" must be received back to Israel in order to destroy her.

Nothing aroused Satan's hatred and the wrath of Islam like the birth of the nation of Israel. It must be annihilated. And here Islam itself is the driving force, not a few "extremists." Islam promises Muslims victory against the Jews as well as against the entire world. Instead, they taste only humiliation in every attack they launch. Israel, on the other hand, in spite of being under God's judgment, enjoys His protection in many ways, as foretold: "In that day will I make the governors of Judah like a torch of fire in a sheaf; and they shall devour all the people round about" (Zech 12:6). The wars of 1948, 1956, 1967, and 1973 have borne eloquent testimony to the truth of Scripture: "If it had not been the Lord who was on our side, now may Israel say; If it had not been the Lord who was on our side, when men rose up against us: Then they have swallowed us up quick, when their wrath is kindled against us Blessed be the Lord, who hath not given us as a prey to their teeth.Our help is in the name of the Lord who made heaven and earth" (Ps 124:1-8).

The Arabs' repeated defeat at the hands of Israel is for them both embarrassing and maddening. The Imams blame this shame upon the departure from true Islam by the masses of Muslims. They are whipping up a worldwide revival of fundamentalist Islam as the way to regain Allah's blessing and thereby defeat Israel.

There is a law in Islam that once Muslims have possessed a territory in their conquest of the world (as commanded by Allah through his prophet Muhammad), that land can never be relinquished. Islam cannot tolerate having territory which it once controlled regain its independence. Nor can non-Muslims reign over Muslims. Having taken Jerusalem in 641, Muslims controlled all of what had once been Israel for centuries. The Turkish Ottoman Empire held the entire Middle East for 400 years until 1917. It is therefore an unacceptable reversal of Islamic history for Jews now to be in control of any of their Promised Land. Thus, as soon as the UN partitioned "Palestine" in 1947, the Arabs rioted in protest.

So long as Israel retains autonomy over one square yard of land in the Middle East, it is an affront to Islam and declares to the world that Islam is a false religion, Allah a false god, Muhammad a false prophet, and the Qur'an a false revelation. This is the issue-and all the talk of "peace" without recognizing and changing this teaching of Islam is both a fool's dream and a fraud.

*This was one view I found on this subject. Biased as it is. I think it did a good job explaining the friction between the two nations.

Faithful Servant
 
faithfulservant, as much as i appreciate your input, i think it would have been a lot easier if you hadn't just pasted a whole bunch of text and tried to summarise the point of view yourself. just as people are quite happy to attack israel, other people (and not just jews) are perfectly happy to espouse any point of view that defends it, without either side being really willing to a) challenge their own point of view or b) do anything but put varying opinions about disputed historical events. i don't think trying to prove that one side or another is the bigger aggressor or the bigger victim really helps anyone in the long run. as one of my palestinian friends puts it, "if a guy jumps out of the window of a burning building and lands on me and breaks my leg, you'd think he wouldn't blame me for being in pain, just as i shouldn't be blaming him for jumping out of the window." it's not a perfect metaphor by a long stretch but it is at least a constructive point of view that we can build dialogue and peace around.

b'shalom

bananabrain
 
Just a quick reminder - anti-(insert religious/ethnic group here) propaganda should not form a part in discussions on CR.

There are plenty enough anti-Jewish/anti-Muslim/anti-Christian sites out there without this place being drawn into their arguments.

This thread is welcome to address the topic and politics regarding the formation and development of Israel as a nation state, but I don't want to see any more arguments that judge against Jews as a people - ethnically, culturally, or politically - as anti-semiticism and racism, in their broadest terms, are unacceptable here.
 
Sorry Brian if my posts were taken like that. My attempt was to show that in opposite of the view some Muslims have regarding Israels right as being known as a nation and as a right to have the land returned to them.. I couldnt post a link of that article because Its a newsletter I receive about Middle Eastern affairs from a Christian perspective. I could have just commented on it.. Feel free to remove the article from this thread I didnt post it to offend anyone I posted it for discussions sake. I felt there was an extreme view that started the thread and I wanted the extreme view from the other side of the spectrum to show that people believe different things.
 
I agree with I Brain...
Infact If I remember my History lesson correctly....
It were Muslims... which gave protection to Jews... when they were thrown out of Spain along with Muslims...
and Jews Prospered More under muslim rule then in any other ....
the basis of scientific renasiance has one very important link in the history of Spain.
where all the three communties... for a pretty long period lived peacefully along each other..
..It were Jews who used to tranlate the work done by muslim scientists and scholars for the benefit of Europeans..
... so in my view...some of the posts of Faithful servant are not historically correct..and certainly come under Inflammation...

http://www.muslimheritage.com/topics/default.cfm?ArticleID=384

Will show the tolerant and Human aspect of Muslim civilization ...which is quiet contratry to the Faithful servants view

There are other similiar artcile too on the same site...

...I prefer not to cut and paste ....as it will move the topic away from the orignal idea of finding the root of Jewish people...
 
It's alright, Faithfulservant - it's more the original post by Friend, which I'm expressing my discomfort about. Bananabrain seems to have answered it pretty well, but I really want to encourage people to share their own ideas in their own words - and to avoid anything that may be construed as launching attacks on other religions represented here.
 
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