The Bible tells us that the children of Isaac, the Jews, and the children of Ishmael, the Arabs, are all the children of Abraham. If true, we’re all cousins. When you follow the DNA trails of Jews, Arabs, and other Middle Eastern peoples, you find that there’s some considerable truth in us all being related way back when.
So it really pains me and pisses me off when we behave like this towards each other, as reported today by the Associated Press:
Palestinians have long accused those among them who sell land to Jews of betraying their homeland, and last week similar language was heard from a group of rabbis. Meeting in Pisgat Zeev, they issued an edict denouncing Jews who sell land to Arabs as “traitors” and barring them from participating in communal prayers.
“This is a war, and if the Arabs conquer one neighborhood, they will conquer others and they will strangle the Jews,” said Hillel Weiss, a spokesman for the “New Sanhedrin,” which takes its name from the supreme court of ancient Israel.
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When my parents were first getting ready to buy their first house in the San Fernando Valley, my dad was being taken around by a real estate agent to look at various neighborhoods. My dad didn’t fit the stereotype that most people had of Jews in those days: his name as Tucker (an Anglo name) and he was a millwright - machinist (Anti-Semites think we’re all rich and definitely can’t work with our hands).
My father looks down this street, sees some nice homes as the real estate agent was driving, and asks to check out the area. The agent tells him, “no, you don’t want to live there. That’s where we put all the Jews.”
My father punched him in the nose and walked home.
Any Jew who has learned the lessons of what discrimination means for ourselves or our parents or earlier ancestors ought to punch any Rabbi in the nose for suggesting that we behave as people have behaved towards us.
Leviticus 19:33
“When a stranger sojourns with you in your land, you shall not do him wrong.
Leviticus 19:34
You shall treat the stranger who sojourns with you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.
Since the Bible tells us that the Arab people are our cousins, we should treat them as family.