Knock it off!

imag0619-copy

A few millennia ago a group of people moved from one place to another, and along the way killed quite a few people including women and children every time they arrived at a new place.

They eventually found a place they liked and decided to stay, and, of course, since there were already people living there, they had to kill off as many of them as they could so they could live in relative peace in their new place.

No angry survivors, no problems.

They needed to explain the killings not only to the people who lived around them, but to their descendants who might be bothered by this history, so they wrote their story down, as winners do, so that history favored them, and to make sure people wouldn’t be able to really find fault with them.

They added in their story that the reason they moved to where they did and why all the killing should be overlooked was because their God had promised them a place to live, and this was it.

They only killed off all the people and took their land because that is how God wanted it, and how can you argue with what God wanted?

The problem with this is that God supposedly promised land to Abraham and to his descendants, but made the promise before Abraham had any children. According to the law at the time, if a wife was barren, the first born male of the Number One concubine (the original Biblical marriage allowed for multiple wives and concubines) became the heir to any property, promises, or contracts, and in Abraham’s case that was Ishmael born of Hagar, Abe’s Number One concubine.

Things would have been much simpler if that had been it, but then Abraham’s wife, Sarah, got pregnant, they were both like 80 to 90 years old by the way, and she had a son Isaac.  So that complicated things on two levels.

First, Ishmael was the first and legally born son of his father, and since God didn’t specify which first born son, that of a concubine or that of the wife, would be the one whose descendants would inherit everything and get the eventual Promised Land, it should have included the descendants of both sons.

Secondly, Sarah did not like Hagar and wanted her own kid to get it all.

To resolve this, Abraham did what was also lawful and sent Hagar and Ishmael out into the desert where they would die and solve the problem. But they didn’t. And Ishmael became the father of the Arabs and Isaac the father of the Hebrews.

For some reason whenever God made a plan, He left some detail out, or didn’t consider any complications.

He created Adam and Eve without the knowledge of good and evil, and when they disobeyed Him and ate of the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, He punished them for doing something they had no idea was wrong because up until then they had no idea there was that division of things. Then to have children and start the human race, their children had to commit multiple instances of cross generational incest, which is considered against His will, and weakened the gene pool really quickly at the very beginning of humanity  which could explain why humanity is so messed up.

Here He made a promise without specificity, and allowed for two legally first born sons to happen without clarifying things after the births even though, according to the story of Abraham, He spoke to him at least one time after these events.

He also did not seem to pay any attention to Hagar and Ishmael after they entered the desert, and, thus, did not insure there would be no problem. And we know that He very often killed people or had them killed, so it would not have been out of character to make sure they died.

Maybe He was all wrapped up dealing with some ancient sports event.

The active component of the medicine return lost cheap cialis cute-n-tiny.com male potency, enhanced sexual pleasure, stamina and lusty desire for satisfying his partner. However, some men may prefer a natural way to put off cheap cialis india regular urination. These pills are cialis generic from india tagged with pocket friendly prices to serve the society. Ginseng: Ginseng is another potent herb which improves the energy levels generic viagra usa too. So the descendants of the Hebrews claim the promise was made to them and the Arabs claim the same for themselves. And, why not? Both follow the promise as made.

Hence the need for two states in the Middle East, or at least shared land.

We don’t hear about the Arabs in the Bible, but the Hebrews wrote all about themselves and why things should go their way, and we read a lot about other people in the region not being too happy they are there.

Jumping ahead, after World War II and the Holocaust, which was the extreme conclusion to Christian Europe’s centuries old hatred of the Jews, and after a few acts of terrorism to get it done, Israel was established as a political state where other people had been living.

Jews began heading there as it was seen as the Promised Land, and as more people showed up, there was a need to build the houses they needed.

Since God had given them the land, to hear them tell it, well, it simply was theirs and the others just happen to be there and any claim they said they had was trumped by the God plan.

So over the years, settlements were built for the incoming descendants of Isaac which involved bulldozing the homes and farms of the descendants of Ishmael whose share in the original promise is simply ignored.

This has caused quite a bit of trouble, and the rest of the world wants Israel to stop taking the land occupied by the other people there even as it acts like that brat who, along with the other kids in the room, is told no one is to touch the cookies, but then quickly and lightly pokes one of the cookies with a finger while saying “touch”.

The United Nations Security Council passed a resolution demanding an end to Israeli settlement building.

The resolution was passed by the 15-member council the day before this past Christmas Eve because, rather than diplomatically shielding Israel by using its veto power, the United States chose to abstain.

Israel, which gets a lot of money from the taxpayers of the United States who end up paying for Israel’s defense, as well as the free education and universal healthcare we do not get at home, is not happy, and its Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu stated,

“I instructed the Foreign Ministry to complete within a month a re-evaluation of all our contacts with the United Nations, including the Israeli funding of U.N. institutions and the presence of U.N. representatives in Israel. I have already instructed to stop about 30 million shekels ($7.8 million) in funding to five U.N. institutions, five bodies, that are especially hostile to Israel … and there is more to come.”

Now think about it. Israel keeps taking the land that people have lived on for centuries and has instituted a form of apartheid, and has known that no matter how bad it behaves, it will be defended by the United States at billions of dollars a year against all the people it is annoying, really annoying.

But finally people are getting to the point that if Israel wants to keep poking the lion with a stick, we aren’t going to pretend it is not doing that and then jumping between it and the lion when it attacks.

Most countries view Israeli settlement building in the West Bank and East Jerusalem as illegal and an obstacle to peace, But Israel keeps citing a biblical connection to the land.

They are taking our tax money that we could use, and, if the United States objects, or even so much as hints we will not be giving them all the money that it wants, Israel usually threatens that it will just switch allegiances, form a relationship with our enemies, and get money from them, and so we give in.

Enough is enough, and the world, including the United States under President Obama, wants Israel to stop being a jerk, and knock it off.

******************************************************************************

COMING SOON:

THE BEST CARTOON COLLECTION FOR 2016.

Leave a Reply