xenon13 wrote:
One hilarious conspiracy theory is the one that says that Palestine really was a land without a people until the world Anti-Semitic Conspiracy got together when they figured out that the Jews wanted it and rushed people to Palestine, racing the Jews in order to thwart the Jews because everyone is just dying the thwart the Jews at every turn.
Anyone who believes that is quite foolish. It is worse. It is irredentism. The Orthodox Jews insisted that the Zionist movement (which was -secular- and political, not religious) was sinful. The Orthodox insisted that Jews would be returned to the land stolen from the Canaanites by Abraham and some of his descendants when God was good and ready to make the return happen.
Normally I consider the Orthodox Jewish folks a bit extreme, but the way things are working out in the region and the modern State of Israel (which is not the Kingdom the prophets wrote about), it turns out that the Orthodox might have been right. The Israelis are being out-bred by their Muslim neighbors. They are fighting a losing battle on the reproduction front.
The future of Jews and Judaism is still in the Diaspora.
By the way, as a matter of historical fact, there always have been some Jews in the Land, since the time of Abraham. The Diaspora did not move all of the Israelites out of the area when the Assyrians and later the Babylonians conquered the area. It moved out most of the inhabitants but not all. For example the Samaritans were not driven out. The Samaritans were Jews and descended from the people who came to the Land from Egypt.
ruveyn
For the record, both Jews and Muslims are the sons and daughters of Abraham. Born of the one God and branches of the one tree.