Today, I heard that 4 UN peacekeepers died during the latest bombing in Lebanon. And the US is asking Israel to answer for it. A canadian is one among the dead. It is horrific to think that in the midst of all this strife to cleanse the world of terrorism, all the innocent civilians are dying.

It's so sad seing all the small coffins in the pictures. You know they're children. Children who have not been blessed to be born a different culture. Because they are Lebanese. That's why they are dead. Most people say that it might be as well - they'll just probably grow up to be terrorists.

I remember my Dad. One of my earliest memorable conversations with him was about God and the Bible. And the promised land. I would sit on his lap and he would read to me. He would tell me the story of Moses, and how he led the promised people out of slavery to a land called Canaan. This is one of the best stories he's ever read to me. My dad was so smart. I remember asking him what about the people who lived in Canaan. What happened to them?

Well, let's see. Something about which cames first, the chicken or the egg. Is terrorism a bi-product of cause and effect? Who knows? History has been written and re-written to accomodate the new rulers of every land.

I do not agree with the bombings. I do not agree with the terror. And I want to keep my family safe from all these bad things. So, do we just condemn? It's easy for us to take a side in this altercation, since we are not standing at the front line. We are not casualties of war. It's like we are waving our bets around. Here take 50 for Israel. Take 50 for the Palestenians. And 100 people lay dead on the streets.

I did some research on land disputes for this region, and I believe Rabbi Ken Spiro explains it better.

Excerpt from CANAAN AND ANCIENT ISRAEL, written by The University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology

The land known as Canaan was situated in the territory of the southern Levant which today encompasses Israel -- the West Bank and Gaza Strip -- Jordan and the southern portions of Syria and Lebanon. Throughout time many names have been given to this area including Palestine -- Eretz-Israel -- Bilad es-Shem -- Holy Land -- Djahy. The earliest known name for this area was Canaan. The inhabitants of Canaan were never ethnically or politically unified as a single nation. They did however share sufficient similarities in language and culture to be described together as Canaanites.

Israel refers to both a people within Canaan and later to the political entity formed by those people. To the authors of the Bible Canaan is the land which the tribes of Israel conquered after an Exodus from Egypt and the Canaanites are the people they disposed from this land. The Old Testament of the Bible is principally concerned with the religious history of Israel in Canaan .....

Crash Course on Jewish History THE PROMISED LAND published by Rabbi Ken Spiro
The Jewish story begins in the Book of Genesis, Chapter 12, when God first speaks to Abraham, and continues through to the end with the death of Jacob and Joseph. This segment can best be described as the development of the "family" of Israel, which in the Book of Exodus will become a "nation."

In the last installment of these series we examined the patterns set into history when God sent Abraham on his journey.

Abraham had been born in Ur Kasdim in Mesopotamia (today's Iraq) then moved with his father to Haran (today's northern Syria/southern Turkey) and that is where he got the instruction to go to Canaan, the Promised Land, which will become the Land of Israel.

God said to Abram: "Go from your land ... to the land that I will show you." (Genesis 12:1)

This is a key statement and the promise is repeated several times. For example:

On that day, God made a covenant with Abram, saying: "To your descendants I have given this land, from the river of Egypt as far as the great river the Euphrates. The land of the Kenites, Kenizites, Kadmonites; the Chitties, Perizites, Refaim; the Emorites, Canaanites, Gigashites and Yevusites." (Genesis 15:18-21)

"And I will give to you and to your descendants after you, the land of your temporary residence, all the land of Canaan as an eternal possession and I will be a God to them." (Genesis 17:8)

We say that Judaism is God, Torah and the Land of Israel. The Land of Israel is not a pay off. God did not say to Abraham: Support me and if monotheism spreads throughout the world, I will give you a good piece of real estate for your own. God gave Abraham and his family the Land of Israel as a laboratory where his descendants are supposed to create the nation that's the model for the world.

A SPIRITUALLY SENSITIVE PLACE

The Land of Israel is a special place; it's the only place on the planet earth where the Jewish people can achieve their mission. A model nation cannot come to be anywhere else. So, it is very important to understand the Jewish relationship with the land.

And because it's a special place, a spiritually sensitive place, a place of tremendous potential, it's also a place where one has to behave in a special manner. The Jews were only given the land because of their mission. If they abandon the mission, they lose the land. This is another very important lesson in Jewish history which is repeated, and it is also one of the most often repeated prophecies: "If you don't keep Torah, the Land will vomit you out."

One of the most often repeated prophecies is: If you don't keep Torah, the Land will vomit you out.

Throughout the early part of the Bible, God is constantly talking about giving the Jewish people the Land of Israel and reaffirming that commitment.

Indeed, the great 11th century Biblical commentator Rashi, asks a question of the very first sentence in the Bible: Why does God begin with the creation of the universe?

If the Bible is a book of theology for the Jews, why not begin with the creation of the Jewish nation and go immediately to the story of Exodus. That's when the Jews become a nation, get the Torah, and go into the land.

And Rashi answers, quoting an ancient oral tradition that in the future, the nations of the world will say "you are thieves" to the Jewish people. You have stolen the land from the Canaanite tribes. So God begins the Bible here at the creation of the universe to tell the world: "I am the Creator of the Universe. Everything is mine. I choose to give the Land of Israel to the Jewish people."

CLAIMS OF CONQUEST

Every other nation in the world bases its claim to its land on conquest. A people came (for example, the English or the Spanish) conquered the indigenous people (for example, the Indians) took the land, settled it, and called it by a new name (for example, United States of America). "Might makes right" is the historical claim of almost all nations in history.

However, the Jewish people base their claim on God's promise. It is a moral claim because God is God and God is by definition truth, and God is by definition morality. God gave the Jewish people the Land of Israel. Without that, the only claim the modern State of Israel can make is it is stronger and was able to take the land from the Arabs.


The Bible gives the Jews a moral claim to the Land of Israel.

This is a very important thing, and essential for the State of Israel -- which is not a religious state and often far removed from Jewish values -- to realize that the Bible gives the Jews a moral claim.

Indeed, the early founding fathers of the modern state, even if they were not religious, were deeply steeped in the realization of Biblical heritage of the Jewish people and their connection to the land. Ben Gurion had an appreciation of the necessity of anchoring a modern, even secular Israeli state in Judaism and Jewish tradition. (We'll get more on Zionism later in this series.)

ISHMAEL

After Abraham arrives in the Promised Land, he is faced with a dilemma. His wife Sarah is barren, and she wants Abraham to have an offspring. So she suggests that Abraham take a surrogate wife, Hagar, who joined Abraham's camp when he passed through Egypt. Hagar is the daughter of the Pharaoh and she had elected to travel with Abraham as Sarah's maidservant. Great people have great servants. And so Abraham takes Hagar as his second wife and from that relationship is going to come a child by the name of Ishmael.

Ishmael will not want to carry on Abraham's mission. Ishmael will go off and found his own lineage; this is all recorded in the Bible, in the Book of Genesis, Chapter 16.

In human history, we're going to have two great monotheistic faiths, which are going to appear later, after Judaism is already established for more than 2,000 years: Christianity and Islam.


The Arabs, according to their own tradition and to the Jewish tradition, are the descendants of Ishmael.

Islam is a religion which originated with the Arab peoples. The Arabs, according to their own tradition and according to the Jewish tradition, are the descendants of Ishmael. One of the great attributes of Arab culture is hospitality. And the Bible tells us that Abraham was famous for hospitality.

It seems therefore that even though Ishmael does not carry on Abraham's mission he can't help but be great. He's blessed. By the way, the Bible says specifically that Ishmael is going to be great and that he's going to be at odds with the rest of the civilized world.

"You shall call his name Ishmael ... And he will be a wild man; his hand will be against every man, and every man's hand against him; and he shall live in the presence of all his brothers. (Genesis 16:11-12)

SUPERNATURAL BEGINNING

When it is clear that Ishmael will not carry on the mission, God tells Abraham, who is then 99, that Sarah, who is 90, is going to become pregnant. And this is how Isaac is born, supernaturally.

As we noted earlier, this is what defines the Jewish people. The Jews never should have been there. The Jews certainly shouldn't have survived, yet they did and still are here.

Before Sarah conceives God tells Abraham:

"Your wife Sarah will bear you a son, and you will name him Isaac. I will establish My covenant with him as an eternal covenant to his descendants after him. And as for Ishmael ... I have bless him and I will make him fruitful and will increase him exceedingly. He will become the father of twelve princes and I will make him into a great nation. But I will establish My covenant with Isaac who Sarah will bear to you at this time next year." (Genesis 17:19-21)

So Isaac is the person who will carry on the mission of Abraham, the mission of the Jews.