Waxing Poetically: Addressing Culture with a Twist of Poetry

An angel prevents the sacrifice of Isaac.

Painting by Rembrandt van Rijn, Abraham and Issac 1634
Illustration found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham

For more than 3000 years since the historical days of the Biblical Patriarch Abraham, the destiny of the Jewish people according to believers has seemed an irrevocable statement of truth. In the Book of Genesis, the reader is told of the formerly named Abram, “The LORD said to Abram: ‘Go forth from the land of your kinsfolk and from your father’s house to a land that I will show you.’I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great, so that you will be a blessing.
I will bless those who bless you and curse those who curse you. All the communities of the earth shall find blessing in you’.[1] Thus, Israel was born.

Yet, because of the nation’s collective belief in its right to exist, Israel has always had opposition. Whether that opposition was Egyptian, Babylonian, Persian Greek, Roman or Arab. But the longest running dispute according to Arab-Israeli conflict timeline begins some thirty years after the establishment of Islam in Palestine around 636 A.D./B.C.E after the Common Era when Muslim ruler Caliph Abd el-Malik built the Dome of the Rock mosque on the grounds where the second sacred Jewish temple had been destroyed by the Roman army in the year 70. [3] The hundreds of years that followed would see a tension between the two over who had the rightful claim to the land in Israel was as Muslims in the region claimed that their faith was the truth faith of Abraham and that Palestine should be claimed as an Islamic state. This conflict would only be interrupted by another when in 1099 Pope Urban II initiated the Crusades killing large numbers of non-Christians. The land would continue to be known as Palestine throughout the Middle Ages though the reign of the Ottoman Empire in the early 1500s and further Turkish rule until the 1918 British Occupation of Palestine. [2]

Then in 1948, Great Britain along with other allied nations including the United states would finally declare the Jewish people a right to establish a Jewish nation on Palestinian soil. Consequentially, the Palestinian people felt invaded and launched a military campaign against the Israelis the very next day.

The list is as follows:

* 1948 War of Independence
* 1956 Sinai War
* 1967 Six Day War
* 1973 Yom Kippur War[2]

Subsequent conflicts have plagued the region ever since and have ushered in a militant, jihadist movement which continues today in the Gaza region of Israel as the Arab leader have violated a cease-fire issued six months ago by launching rockets in to the Gaza strip last week. Currently the Arab leaders of the Hamas organization have vowed to destroy Israel and take over the land as it is in their mind willed by God to do so.[5]

Another View

The conflict in the Middle East would be quite expeditiously solved were it not for the fact that both sides are invoking the “will of God” - arguably and by all accounts the same God of Abraham, Issac, Jacob and all the successive Jewish prophets of Hebrew Bible and Qu’ran. So it becomes a case of ideologies claiming nearly identical histories obliterated one an other over which of two has some kind of direct inter-dimensional satellite uplink to an all-powerful omnipotent, and in most theologies, omnipresent being. Of course, all this being based upon belief rather than politics makes the solution as likely as if Stevie Wonder were suddenly able to solve a Rubik’s cube. Add to that quandary to the fact that whole notion of loving one’s neighbor as oneself is central to both Judaism and Islam and it makes one wonder if anybody in the “Holy Land” is really reading their holy books in proper context. For instance, Sura 2:26 of the Qu’ran states, “Surely, those who believe, those who are Jewish, the Christians, and the converts; anyone who (1) believes in GOD, and (2) believes in the Last Day, and (3) leads a righteous life, will receive their recompense from their Lord. They have nothing to fear, nor will they grieve.”[6]

Secondly, considering that the Palestinian people never had time to prepare for their new Israeli transition in 1948, it becomes a scenario of a person coming into another person’s home, abruptly dividing up his kitchen and saying, “Oh, I forgot to tell you… the left side of your kitchen belongs to me now.” The new neighbor can’t just expect the other guy to be in great spirits over the whole thing. However, if there were a few Israeli folks living in the house already, why would the owner kill them? It seems asinine to me even to want do so.

Will this battle ever end? It seems that this crisis will never be solved until the two sides realize that it may be in their best interests to live together and split the rent money and help one another stay… well, alive.

Wax in brotherhood.

Reference Links

1. http://www.usccb.org/nab/bible/genesis/genesis12.htm

2. http://www.science.co.il/Israel-history.asp

3. http://www.bibleplaces.com/domeofrock.htm

4. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090103/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_israel_palestinians

5. http://www.sacbee.com/topstories/story/1508175.html

6. http://www.submission.org/suras/sura2.html

Share this post with others:

Trackback URI | Comments RSS