www.byzcath.org Forums General Discussions Town Hall Would the Jews have been more secure someplace else?

With abundant land available one wonders why the Palestinians and Jews can't get along. But that has not happened. So my question is "Would the Jews have been more secure someplace else?"

What if half of Germany had been given over to a Jewish nation after WWII. Would Jews have been secure there? There's nothing in history that would indicate that they would have.

What if a section of the USSR had been ceded to the Jews for their nation. Would the Jews have been secure there? Remembering that the word pogrom comes out of Russia there is almost no reason to believe that they would have been.

What about Spain? Poland? Any other place in the Middle East? What about Arkansas? Maybe Arkansas but why should they have to give up their state?

The Jews have always been attacked by those with whom they lived. There is little reason to believe that any place would be secure for them.

So why not Palestine?

Some I suppose would argue that there are several people who do not have their own land. The Carpatho-Rusyn never had their own land. Neither do the Kurds. The difference is that neither group has been hunted down by others with the intent to eliminate them from the face of the earth. Why shouldn't the Jews live in a somewhat protected area of their choosing? Of course they aren't secure there either, but at least they get to choose.

Obviously, there are problems with how the UN and the West gave the land away. Obviously, there are problems that have arisen that were caused by the rough treatment the Israelis dealt out to many Palestinians. It should be remembered that there are many Palestinians who do live in Israel relatively unmolested by the Jewish Israelis.

If we can stick to the question for a day or so can we come up with some possible answers? "Would the Jews have been more secure someplace else?" If so, where and how?

CDL

One of the places initially proposed was Argentina, if I am not mistaken - however, I don't know what criteria was used to decide.

Sidenote about the Kurds, they were actually hunted down by a variety of people - the Ottomans, the secular Turks, and the Iraqis tried to wipe them out.

The same happened to the Armenians, which the Turks still won't acknowledge.

The Armenians at least still have a land. Some would be happy if the Jews were annihilated. Some who used to post here.

CDL

You have to remember that G-d gave the land to the Jews through Moses...when he led them out of Egypt.

That is why this land is THEIRS to begin with.

I want to add that even though the Jews left the land for some time, it doesn't give anyone else the right to take the land that's not theirs to begin with.

It's like saying that if I have two houses to live...and somebody just took my house while I was gone...and then I came back, I couldn't get my house back.

So that's what's happening in Israel.

I think Muslims should LEAVE the land for good, since they're nothing but trouble since Muhammad made up some kind of "vision" and established a new "religion" or "cult" and Koran.

SPDundas
Deaf Byzantine

We shouldn't tolerate anti-semitism whether it's directed at Jews or Arab non-Jews.

As for whether the nation of Israel is synonymous with the people Moses led, I would say they are not.

Israel as a nation has no claim to the land mentioned in the Bible, any more than the Palestinians (Philistines) who lived there before them.

I don't think we should use the Bible to determine the political/land situation in that region - that would began a whole new set of problems, including which group's religious texts to treat as authentic.

As for Christians, we are the New Israel, the spiritual descendents of the people Moses led and we have no need of an earthly kingdom - we have the Kingdom of God in our midst, the Church.

Michael,

That is precisely why I did not use a biblical justification for who should occupy that land. What is clear though is that we do have a mandate to treat the Jews, whatever their spiritual heritage, with respect and allow them to have a place to live. We've not hesitated to use a "biblical" justification for murdering them over the centuries but I still don't see a need to use one for allowing them to live in relative peace.

CDL

Birobidjan in the USSR: the land was almost uninhabited and they could have lived there peacefuly and far away from the rest of the nations.

I also disagree about using the Bible. According to our religion, Jews are no longer the People of God the same way they were at the time of the Old Testament.

For those who don't know, Birobidjan is in Siberia, also known as the Autonomous Jewish Republic. Established by Senor Stalin at gunpoint for Jews from the USSR, right next to the places he forcibly resettled the Crimean Tatars and the Kazakhs around the area now known as the Cosmodrome.

I'm ambivalent about this conclusion. Nevertheless, Jews should not be treated like livestock. They should be able to have their own land and live where they wish.

CDL

Mexican,

I was just wondering if Mexicans should all volunteer to leave Mexico for Siberia and the Jews could move to Mexico. It seems quite as appropriate as what you suggested. Not that it's a good idea, but still it could solve alot of problems.

CDL

There was a protestant pastor on the radio this afternoon, who applied all the biblical promises made by God to Israel ("Cursed be those who curse thee, blest be those who bless thee" etc.). To the modern state of Israel.

Whatever that country is, it is not heir to the promises of the O.T., and it is dangerous how much U.S. foreign policy is motived by fundamentist Christian nonsense, and other odd applications of verses of the Old Testament.

Those who hold to that agenda (to hasten the rebuilding of the Temple, the arrival of the antichrist, and the return of the Savior) and who insist that the U.S. support "Israel" no matter what it does, scares me.

Nick

It would scare me too, if I thought it were true. I haven't notice such things myself, but then I could have missed it. I do know that there are people who believe this stuff but I hadn't detected it in anything our country has done or in anything our leaders have said. Could you point out some of these things?

CDL

I have believed for some time, that the religion of the Jews ended in 70 AD when the priesthood, temple, and most everything else were destroyed. What has remained of Judaism is what the Talmudic scholars have cobbled together and kept alive. However, I certainly bear them no ill will and of course, they should have a place to live in safety. But I don't know what is so great about where they are. Golda Meir said God led the Israelites around in the desert for 40 years, then settled them in the only spot in the middle east that has no oil. When I look at the land of Israel my response is, "this is the promised land?" It has never seemed to me to be that desirable a piece of real estate. Surely, one would think, God could do better. Now all this is just my personal opinion, nothing more. However, I don't see modern Israel as having much of a connection to the extinct Old Testament kingdom of Israel.

Land titles and such are not good for all time, especially if they have been abandoned for a notable period. I don't recommend leaving your house unoccupied for 2,000 years and then attempting to have your putative remote descendants take it to court in an effort to get it back.

A simple example: obviously, we all know that Henry Tudor, Mary Tudor, Edward Tudor and Elizabeth (the daughter of Anne Boleyn) did not take plebescites when they made their religious changes. But any attempt by English Catholics to repossess Westminster Abbey through the courts would be laughed out of court. The same applies to everything else held by the Church of England. The title is good.

We are not living in immediate postapostolic times. The methods by which the Roman Empire chased the Jews out of Palestine (not all of them left, by the way), would not be tolerated in the present world. But the attempt to maintain that 21st century Jews are mostly descended from the diaspora Jews of that period (they are not, and this is easily proved), and that therefore they have some sort of "right" to use force and violence to expel the inhabitants of Palestine from their country, their land, their homes, etc. has no standing. As for the claim that there exists a "right" to create a religious state in Palestine, that has only to be articulated to be seen for an absurdity. No one today accepts the idea that Northern Ireland has the "right" to be "a Protestant State for a Protestant People" - there is, of course, an exception: Vatican City State, but nobody was displaced by its creation, the territory is minute (most of the citizens of Vatican City live in Italy) and everyone knows that it was created only to give the administration of the Catholic Church independence from any civil government.

The Jewish State (and don't blame me for that expression; that is precisely what the World Zionist Organization calls it) was created with suffering and bloodshed and has been maintained by suffering and bloodshed.

As to the question of where the Jews might properly have gone after World War II - first of all, I have no obligation to answer it, since I was 4 years old when World War II ended. Aside from that, I don't have an answer if the questioner insists on someplace with good land, significant assets, and no inhabitants (does anyone remember the slogan "a land without a people for a people without a land"?) But I am quite prepared to say that all the survivors of the Nazis (and the heirs of those who did not survive) were fully entitled to compensation, to the restoration of their own homes where possible or, in cases where the homes had been destroyed or where for other serious reasons a return was impossible, to resettlement in other countries - note the plural, please. It is very much to the point to remember that several "respectable" countries of the West were not all that respectable when it came to refugees from Nazism, or when it came to active measures to slow down the mass murders at least. It suited several of the great powers to get the Jews "out of the way" in the Middle East, and thus duck their own responsibility.

Now, as a result of all this irresponsiblity and more, we are facing a terrible crisis, playing out before the eyes of the world. One poster said that the Jews and the Palestinians could not share Palestine. Under reasonable conditions, this was not true - although by now it might be true.

Fr. Serge

It never ended, because it is universal as the Church.