Arab - Israeli deep rooted rivarly

Lifestyle Religion, Spiritualism & Philosophy
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Deuteronomy 2:4-5
[4]And command thou the people, saying, Ye are to pass through the coast of your brethren the children of Esau, which dwell in Seir; and they shall be afraid of you: take ye good heed unto yourselves therefore:
[5]Meddle not with them; for I will not give you of their land, no, not so much as a foot breadth; because I have given mount Seir unto Esau for a possession.

Disclaimer: Long fucked up read

The above verse is a warning that God gave the Israelis as they approached Canaan after their 40 year long journey from nearby Egypt.

I have reason to believe that the Israeli oppression of the Palestinians and the ongoing resettlement scheme, read -occupation - of their ancestral land, is not only a contravention of several UN rulings but also of this eerily specific rule from non other but Yahweh.
That’s if we can somehow show the children of Esau to be modern day palestinians or Arabs in general.

  • Yahweh’s existence or not, that’s a debate for another day dear self proclaimed Atheists and staunch scientology elders in this village -
    It is rather obvious that today’s world’s most unrelenting and destablising foes are also closely related. DNA research has actually traced the Arabs and Jews back to a common semitic gene.
    The Qur’an and the Bible are also almost exact replicas from the creation stories up until that time Abraham DFHKM his maid Hagahii under the guidance of chief swinger Sarah and begot Ishmael…then sent the poor maid and her young lad out into the gulf deserts.
    This act is regarded as the beginning of a seemingly eternal beef between the two blood thirsty factions mostly because the arabs and muslims at large believe that Ishmael is their forefather who never got justice. But the injustice didn’t end there…

…that’s the story most of us have heard but not many know who Esau was let alone his relevance in Jewish, Islam and Christian belief. Now today i stumbled into another interesting read:

Genesis 28:6-9
[6]When Esau saw that Isaac had blessed Jacob, and sent him away to Padanaram, to take him a wife from thence; and that as he blessed him he gave him a charge, saying, Thou shalt not take a wife of the daughters of Canaan;
[7]And that Jacob obeyed his father and his mother, and was gone to Padanaram;
[8]And Esau seeing that the daughters of Canaan pleased not Isaac his father;
[9]Then Esau went to to Ishmael, and took to wife, besides the wives he had, Ma’halath the daughter of Ishmael Abraham’s son, the sister of Nebajoth, to be his wife.

So Esau was Ishmael’s in law. And the only reason why he chose to marry Ishmael’s daughter was as a middle finger to his mother Rebekah. Remember that story about how she loved Jacob over Esau despite both being her sons that she conspired and successfully waylaid Isaac’s blessings unto Jacob?
If yes then it’s clear that Esau felt cheated and betrayed by his own mother that he decided to marry from a lineage that his grandmother Sarah had earlier on conspired against.
This created a permanent rift between the two brothers that they almost went to war against each other and ultimately, when Jacob and all his people retreated to Egypt, Esau was left behind in Canaan:
Joshua 24:4
[4]And I gave unto Isaac Jacob and Esau: and I gave unto Esau mount Seir, to possess it; but Jacob and his children went down into Egypt.

400 years later, Jacob’s people had been enslaved by the Egyptians while Esau’s offspring slaughtered and conqured the giants that inhabited Canaan back then.
They prospered for four centuries despite a history of unfair play at the hands of their spoilt brethren orchestrated by women…an evil scheming mother and a coniving deceitful grandmother.

Only for the Israelites to come back partying seas right in the middle and getting fed kfc straight delivery from the heavens and claiming all of Canaan.

God clearly warned them against displacing the children of Esau and yet He also foretells the end of this conflict in great detail in Obadiah 1. Again on the side of the entitled sons of Jacob:
Obadiah 1:18
[18]And the house of Jacob shall be a fire, and the house of Joseph a flame, and the house of Esau for stubble, and they shall kindle in them, and devour them; and there shall not be any remaining of the house of Esau; for the LORD hath spoken it.

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Focus on our local deep rooted rivalries. what will not help us black people is writing stories about middle eastern tribes whose only highlights in history are being a colony of the Roman empire, Being killed in the millions almost to the point of extinction, forming the only country whose existence is contested, and being unable to live in peace, yet, ironically claim that the grand universe was created for them.

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I agree that we got enough problems of our own to deal with and history we need to teach our kids…especially about that time the african Moores invaded and ruled over Europe for centuries but at the same time we can’t afford to be close minded and blind to other people’s suffering just because we’re also oppressed in our own fucked up way. That’s why the subject matter in this thread is about the palestinians, focus nanii.

4

Why does it look like you are linking the modern Israel to the Bible? You do realize that majority of them are Jews? Currently, there are even more Muslims in Israel than Christians themselves.

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Elder hapa unasema nini…modern Israel bado ndio waisraeli or rather Jews from the Bible…there are contenders to this from moor africans, ethiopians, to our very own okuyus…yes they too have a belief of some sort to be God’s chosen people but unless proven otherwise mkubwa, modern Israeli settlers na Bibilical Israelites are the most obvious match.

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Boss… my very simple point is that Jews are not Christians & do not follow the Bible. So whatever explanation you are crafting here with reference to the Bible is clearly not aligning with their very purpose of occupying the Palestinian lands. Furthermore, your comment here is the very reason why I specifically included the word modern. Meaning, as per the current official statistics, more than 70% of the Israelis follow Judaism. So anything major currently happening in that country/region should not be tied to Christianity nor the Bible (or the Amharics or Mungich for that matter). And me thinks you confusing Jews with Israelites.

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On the surface, it is a dangerous story of division and rejection of Ishmael. When we look carefully at the story of Isaac and Ishmael, we note the extraordinary length to which the text goes to insist that God will bless Ishmael. It is not as simple as Isaac who triumphs, and Ishmael who is rejected. Go back to the momment where Hagar runs away in verse 10 – “Hirba hir’beh et zarecha – I will so increase your descendants that they will be too numerous to count.” That promise that is made to Hagar is the exact same promise made to Abraham about his offspring in Genesis 15:15 – that his children will be too numerous to count. Hagar and Ishmael will be just as blessed as Abraham and Isaac.
And what does God tell Abraham about Ishmael? This is right after God tells Abraham that he and Sarah will have a child – 17:20 “As for Ishmael, I have heeded you. I hereby bless him. I will make him fertile and exceedingly numerous. He shall be the father of twelve chieftains, and I will make of him a great nation. Again the language is suggestive. The promise of ‘twelve rulers’ reminds us of Jacob’s twelve sons, each of whom become a tribe. The phrase ‘a great nation’ echoes God’s promise to Abraham at the beginning of the chapter (12:2). Even though Isaac will continue the covenant, Ishmael will be no less great, perhaps greater. Certainly he will have a share in Abraham’s blessing.
And when Sarah demands that Abraham send Ishmael away, God says, “I will make the son of the maidservant into a nation also, because he is your offspring.” God recognizes that Ishmael remains Abraham’s son and will be blessed accordingly. And as Ishmael lies dying, as God opens Hagar eyes to the water before her, God promises, “I will make him into a great nation.”
God does not reject Hagar or Ishmael. God saves them and repeats what was promised to Abraham – that Ishmael would become a great nation. This is not a story of choice and rejection at all. Isaac has been chosen for a specific destiny, but Ishmael has not been rejected – certainly not by God.
As we delve deeper into the story, we see that the word used to describe Sarah’s treatment of Hagar after Hagar becomes pregnant is the Hebrew word Ina –she afflicted her. The English translation in this text, she treated her harshly is not accurate. The Hebrew is the exact same word to describe how the Egyptians treated the Jews. Sarah is not treated as a heroine in this narrative. When we see Hagar and Ishmael near death, the text focuses on them and directs our sympathy toward their plight. The story is saturated with emotion connecting us to Hagar and Ishmael. Hagar weeps, and we feel the pathos. The text pulls us toward them.
None of this is what we expect, or the simple way most people understand the text. Most would say the hero is Isaac. He is chosen – but in the story our sympathies are pulled to Ishmael and Hagar. We learn he will be blessed, that God hears his tears and is ‘with him’ as he grows up. The masterstroke of the text is that despite the covenant going through Isaac, we enter Hagar and Ishmael’s world. We feel for them. We weep with them, as does God!God hears their tears, comforts them, saves them from death and gives them Divine blessing. Ishmael means ‘he whom God has heard.’
And what happens at the end of the story? When Abraham dies, Isaac and Ishmael come together again to bury him. The story beneath the story is one of reconciliation and embrace as brothers. The Midrash has Abraham visiting Ishmael and continuing to love and support him. On the surface the story of Isaac and Ishmael is about sibling rivalry and the displacement of the elder by the younger. Beneath the surface is just the opposite. Isaac does not displace Ishmael. To be sure, he will have a different destiny. But he too is a beloved son of Abraham, blessed by his father and God. He becomes a great nation. God is ‘with him’ as he grows up. The half brothers stand together at their father’s grave. Note that there is no hostility or conflict.
So where does that leave us today? With faith that brothers in Kenya, nay in the world live together in peace. In our time of religious and ethnic conflict, the call of our text is to see the blessings of our brothers and sisters of different faiths and/or traditions. We need to hear each other’s stories, honor each other’s blessings and come together in shared commitment. Let’s shake hands :smiley: as it were.
And to those of any faith – Judaism, Islam, Christianity or any other faith – who says, “Only my faith is true,” we respond that is not the message of our sacred shared text. N.B. Jews, Christians, and Muslims worship the same Deity. The book for Genesis is a stunning rejection of dehumanization, demonization and division of humanity into the all-good and the all-bad. It is that division of the world into all good or all bad that leads to violence in God’s name. We reject that narrative. God’s reply to those who do violence in God’s name is that we are meant to love and bless those who are different. God embraces diversity and demands that morality be extended to every human. We won’t change the bigot, hypocrite, tribalist or terrorist – rather we might change those who the bigot/hater reaches out to in order to influence and radicalize. There are many who are not bigoted, ethnocentric, fascist, or tribal, with whom we can forge an alliance or connection and mutually reject the evil done in name of religion.

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And you call this deity a God of justice and mercy? This propagation of a chosen people negates the very narrative of a God of justice

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But it does not negate or contradict the revelation of an Almighty Deity who can derive…, precisely because S/He is all good as well all powerful…, it doesn’t, I dare say overrule and quite frankly doesn’t anticipate a Deity who can extract good from evil with impunity. ‘Make all things new.’… No human or angelic mind can fathom the power and goodness of an omnipotent and perfectly incomprehensible Mystery so divine… No one can contemplate a completely Absolute God in the midst of apparently flourishing evil… Even as ‘It’ claims this יהוה rather definitively, to be the only ‘Antidote’ as it were, and our only Salvation. The justice and mercy of the G-d of the Hebrews… Lord have mercy, is beyond our ken.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Xx8et1L5b0