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War In Gaza: Why Now?
Election Politics?
It was widely reported that Israel agreed to delay any war against Iran until after U.S. elections.
A little over a week after the election, Israel launched a "targeted assassination" against the leader of Hamas (who Haaretz called Israel's subcontractor in Gaza). That is what started the current round of fighting. Rabbi Arthur Waskow agrees that Israel started the fighting.
Professor Michel Chossudovsky notes:
On November 14, Hamas military commander Ahmed Jabari was murdered in a Israeli missile attack. In a bitter irony, barely a few hours before the attack, Hamas received the draft proposal of a permanent truce agreement with Israel.
“Hours before Hamas strongman Ahmed Jabari was assassinated, he received the draft of a permanent truce agreement with Israel, which included mechanisms for maintaining the cease-fire in the case of a flare-up between Israel and the factions in the Gaza Strip.”(Haaretz, November 15, 2012)
The targeted assassination of Ahmed Jabari was followed by an extensive bombing campaign under Operation Pillar of Cloud. The latter consists of a carefully planned military endeavor.
F-16 fighter planes, Apache helicopters and unmanned drones were deployed. Israeli naval forces deployed along the Gaza shoreline were involved in extensive shelling of civilian targets.
Israel’s defense minister Ehud Barack has confirmed a scenario of military escalation, blaming Palestine for having committed acts of aggression: .
“[t]he provocations we have suffered and the firing of rockets to the southern settlements within Israel have forced us to take this action. I want to make clear that Israeli citizens will not suffer such actions. The targets are to hit the rockets and to harm the organization of Hamas.”
The Israeli attacks were followed by the firing of dozens of rockets by Hamas against Israel.
Palestine’s response was known to Israeli war planners. The resulting Israeli civilian casualties are now being used to justify military escalation on humanitarian grounds.
What we are dealing with is a carefully planned operation, a clear act of provocation. The deaths of Israeli civilians (envisaged and foreseen by IDF military planners) are being used to muster the support of the Israeli public.
Meanwhile, the Israeli attack is casually portrayed by the Western media as part of a legitimate counter-terrorism agenda.
(Glenn Greenwald notes that America’s targeted assassination policy is identical to that of Israel. This could escalate quickly. Not only are Israel and Hamas exchanging rocket fire – with casualties of children on both sides - but Israel is calling up calling up 30,000 reserve soldiers ahead of a possible ground invasion of Gaza.)
Israel is holding its own elections in January. Many commentators say that the attacks on Gaza are a cynical ploy by the Israeli Prime Minister to win re-election:
Netanyahu was accused by left-wing opposition Hadash party MP Mohammed Baraka [the leader of the Israeli Hadash opposition party] of “making another round in a circle of blood for cynical political interests” and “speculating in the blood of the Palestinian people.”
***
Labour MP Jeremy Corbyn denounced the regime, saying that “once again Israel has wantonly attacked the people of Gaza, bombing and killing.
“This is effectively a first world state attacking a poor and largely defenceless population. It looks like a rerun of Operation Cast Lead,” he said.
“The timing is interesting and it looks like Netanyahu is creating a crisis to ensure his re-election”, the MP added.
Leading German newspaper Spiegel reports:
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is hoping the offensive in the Gaza Strip wins his Likud party more votes in January’s election.
***
“When the cannons roar, we see only Netanyahu and Barak on the screen, and all the other politicians have to applaud them,” wrote the daily Haaretz in a commentary published Thursday. “The assassination of (Hamas’ top military commander Ahmed) Jabari will go down in history as another showy military action initiated by an outgoing government on the eve of an election.”
Indeed, one can conclude that the most recent offensive against militants in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip– which started Wednesday with the killing of Jabari — has been conceived as more of a show fight for the Israeli public than the beginning of a decisive battle.
And Asia times writes:
So why snuff out al-Jabari? Simple. Israel goes to the polls in January. Thus emerges Bibi's political campaigning in full-action mode. Campaign motto: Let's kill Palestinians. With such thrills on offer, any other Israeli political voice - even slightly dissenting - is drowned.
Precursor to War with Iran?
The top British Rabbi – when asked by the BBC on his thoughts on what’s really going on in Gaza right now – replied:
I think it has got to do with Iran, actually.
Why Iran?
Anti War lays out one theory:
This escalation occurs just days after widespread reports about newly reelected Obama mulling a grand bargain with Iran over its disputed nuclear program. Barbara Slavin and Laura Rozen at Al-Monitor reported on Monday that US officials told them Washington was considering offering a “more for more” deal with Iran, based on the fuel swap deal from Obama’s first term.
So what does Israel’s impending war on defenseless Gaza have to do with Iran diplomacy? Here’s a tweet from the Tehran bureau chief for the New York Times, Thomas Erdbrink:
Forget ANY #Iran-US talks if conflict in Gaza escalates
— Thomas Erdbrink (@ThomasErdbrink) November 14, 2012
And here:
#Iran leaders can never be seen as talking to US, while its “eternal” ally Israel assassinates Iran’s ideological allies
— Thomas Erdbrink (@ThomasErdbrink) November 14, 2012
I suspect this point was not lost on the Israeli leadership, either. So, is Netanyahu knowingly escalating military tensions in order to avoid a successful diplomatic overture? I’m speculating, but it isn’t far fetched. We know from extensive reporting, mainly in Israeli media, that in 2010 – just as President Obama requested a freeze on Jewish settlements in the West Bank with the aim of resuming peace talks – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu tried to provoke Iran into a war with Israel that would eventually drag in the United States.
It reminds me of what former CIA Middle East analyst Paul Pillar referred to this week as “Netanyahu’s tension-stoking brinksmanship: to divert attention from continued Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory and inaction on the festering Israeli-Palestinian conflict.” “[T]he Iran issue,” Pillar has previously written, provides a “distraction” from international “attention to the Palestinians’ lack of popular sovereignty.” Now the situation seems reversed: Israel is escalating war with Gaza to maintain deadlock with their favorite scapegoat, Iran.
Israel, lest we forget, instigated this resumption of missile exchanges last week when two Palestinian civilians were shot and killed and
Israeli tanks intruded into Gaza, prompting Gaza militants to respond by targeting Israeli soldiers, which then gave Israel an excuse to unleash successive airstrikes. And Israel had numerous chances to pacify the situation, considering Hamas publicly offered to establish a total ceasefire and Egypt appeared about to broker a truce between the two. Israel has intentionally inched towards escalation from the beginning. Are we to believe this isn’t strategic?
A second theory is that this is a prelude to an Israeli attack on Iran. Specifically, some theorize that Israeli is trying to assassinate top Hamas militants before hitting Iran … so that Iran’s proxy Hamas cannot retaliate.
A third theory is that Israel is trying to drag Iran into a war. Given that Israeli treatment of Palestinians is perhaps the key source of hostility towards the current Israeli administration in the Arab world, starting a war in Gaza may be an attempt by Israeli to drag Iran into war.
After all, Iran backs Hamas, and Israel just assassinated a top Hamas leader after making an overture of peace to him. So some believe that Israel is attempting to poke the hornet’s nest in an attempt to justify wider war.
By provoking Hamas into attacking, Israel might point to Hamas-backer Iran. Specifically, Israel may claim that pre-emptive strikes on Iran are "necessary" to undermine Hamas and make sure it doesn't obtain "weapons of mass destruction".
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Fuckinig Mossad troll. STFU
Seriously?? You are taking issue with someone reporting facts and calling them a troll? Google the news. How many rockets have fallen on Israel this month alone? That is something that should just be ignored?
We should rename it joogle.
Put down the crack pipe, turn off CNN and step AWAY from the computer. You've had enough.
lol, man's imagination is unlimited. My dog kicked me up the ass.
When ICBMs tipped with nuclear warheads pass each other in the stratosphere do they hi-five?
Woobie, get the Jiffy Pop a goin', gonna be a long thread...
Is Jiffy Pop considered kosher?
It’s easier to understand Israel’s aggressiveness once we have the picture of the dominant racism that exists in its population, and how it prohibits Israel’s political leaders from ever pursuing legitimate peace with the Palestinians.
Free lance journalist, Ben White, recently reviewed some of the opinion polls and other material showing the racial aspects of the state of Israel:
“Examples in recent years include over half of Jewish Israelis saying marriage to an Arab is ‘equal to national treason’, 78 per cent of Jewish Israelis opposing Arabs joining the government, 62 per cent of Jewish Israelis encouraging the emigration of Palestinian citizens, and 36 per cent of Jewish Israelis being in favour of revoking the voting rights of non-Jews.
“Such results are entirely expected when you look at the discourse propagated by Israel's leaders. PM Netanyahu, as finance minister in 2003, described Palestinian citizens as a ‘demographic problem’, while in 2009, the current Housing Minister declared it a ‘national duty’ to ‘prevent the spread’ of Palestinian citizens. In 2010, the chair of the Knesset's ‘Lobby for Housing Solutions for Young Couples’ stated that ‘it is a national interest to encourage Jews to move to’ places where ‘the Arab population is on the rise’. When Ehud Olmert was mayor of Jerusalem, he considered it ‘a matter of concern when the non-Jewish population rises a lot faster than the Jewish population’.
“The same racist logic is behind the kinds of warnings issued by PM Netanyahu that ‘illegal infiltrators’ - non-Jewish African refugees and migrants - could threaten the country's existence ‘as a Jewish and democratic state’. In other countries, this is the language of the fringe far-Right; In Israel, to discuss the ‘threat’ posted by Palestinian citizens and other non-Jews is routine…
“In 60 per cent of the West Bank (‘Area C’), Palestinians must apply for building permits from Israeli occupation forces; yet according to a 2008 UN report, 94 per cent of applications are denied. Building illegally means demolition. In 2011, Israel demolished 620 Palestinian-owned structures in the West Bank, part of what the EU has called a ‘forced transfer of the native population’. Meanwhile, cranes and diggers are put to work in thriving, illegal, Israeli settlements.
“Israel also exploits the West Bank's natural resources, such as its ‘discriminatory’ control of water access and usage: Palestinians, over 80 per cent of the population in the West Bank, are restricted to 20 per cent of the water from the main underground aquifer. Human Rights Watch have called Israel's regime in the West Bank a ‘two-tier system’ where Palestinians face ‘systematic discrimination’ (the same terminology they have used to describe policies inside the pre-67 borders as well).
“The Gaza Strip, home to some 1.7 million Palestinians a majority of whom are refugees, is blockaded by the Israeli military behind perimeter fences and ‘buffer zones’ (including at sea). Restrictions on movement began in the early 1990s, with an intensified siege being implemented in 2006-'07. Until today, Israel blocks almost all exports from the territory, and pursues what it calls a ‘separation’ policy for the purpose of cutting off Gaza from the West Bank.
“In March, the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) described Israel's violations of the right to equality in unprecedented terms. Noting ‘segregation between Jewish and non-Jewish communities’ and a lack of ‘equal access to land and property’ inside Israel's pre-67 borders, CERD found a regime of ‘de facto segregation’ in the West Bank severe enough to prompt a reminder of the ‘prohibition’ of ‘apartheid’.
“Across the whole of historic Palestine - Israel, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip - the State of Israel rules over around 12 million people whose rights and privileges are determined on a discriminatory basis. Millions more are excluded from the country all together (because they are Palestinian). It is a regime intended to maintain the domination of one group at the expense of another. It is apartheid.”
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2012/10/20121027145235386715.html
Your reference to the racism that runs through this is spot on.
I have heard Jewish friends seriously refering to Jewish men marrying non-Jewish women as "the silent Holocaust".
I also once had a roomate who was from Israel. Nice, cool guy. EXCEPT when talking about Israel, it was as if he believed in a magical land of pixie dust, the rightful home of a "chosen people". When asked if it wouldn't have been better if they had allowed Israel to be settled in, say, Wyoming or New Mexico or someplace in North America where they had lots and lots of land to be given away, it was met with more magical talk about holy lands and spiritual entitlement, nothing about the rights of the people who were suffering from their policies. Frustrating.
This is just simple logic of an ethnic state, isn't it? Israel is the Jewish Nation. It isn't for Palestinians or anyone else. Just Jews. Which is fine by me, but I am sick and tired of the liberal kvetching Jewish willingness to tolerate the Palkestinians at all. Israel should have expelled all the Palestinians decades ago. Expulsion would have one beneficial effect - it would bring an end to these seemingly endless wars.
I wish we could expel the Jews from America. All of them so they can go fight for their ancestral Jew land.
I bet the American Indians wish they could expel us from their ancestral lands too.
What do you call it when a group of Muslims sieze one of their fellow men, a young Muslim man who recently converted to Christianity, and film themselves cutting off the young man's head, to post on the Internet as a warning about what awaits other converts away from Islam, while a crowd of on lookers (presumably Muslims, too) do nothing to save him?
'Reality TV'? Blame America, they started it.
Your long post is full of mistakes (at best), half truth and lies.
I'll start with the link at its bottom. Aljazeera is a propaganda channel of Qatar, whose track record is as awful as it gets. But, rather then criticize its own establishment or neighboring Arab countries they pick on Israel. This is of course a safe target for picking on, whereas criticizing its own establishment in Qatar or neighboring countries would seal its fate.
Israel is obviously not racist. It has one of the most diverse populations in world, including Arabs (17% of its citizens), Druze, Cherkessk, Blacks (of different ethnic origins and religions), and Jews.
Israel allows freedom of religion, including Muslims of any branch and flavor, Christianity of any type, Baha’i and more.
All this diversity coexists in peace and safety.
Just compare and contrast, how much religion freedom is there in Saudi (an hour flight to the South)? How many churches are there in Saudi? Three, all requiring special permit from the king, btw. How many synagogues are there in Saudi? (Zero, even though there used to be Jews living there once).
Now lets consider Qatar, or any other gulf state for this matter. Answer honestly how does it feel to be a migrant worker there? How about being a female house maid? The Internet is full of awful accounts about the terrible experiences laborers experience there.
But, your and Aljazeera spreads lies about Israel, which are actually relevant to most-other countries in the region.
Pink Floyd, you seem to be changing the subject a bit. We are not discussing the Saudis. We are not discussing Al Jazeera. We are discussing facts from a journalist, Ben White, that can easily be checked.
There’s little opinion presented here.
One reason material such as this is found on Al Jazeera is because in the United States these facts would be grounds for censorship of a journalist; they would not be found in The Washington Post, in the New York Times, on Huffington Post or any of the networks or cable news programs -even though they are easily checked facts. You must know that to find unpopular reports regarding Israel one must look beyond the censored media.
In fact, it was Huffington Post that barred Antiwar’s Justin Raimondo as a columnist because he told the truth about Israel, from his article, "The Meaning of 9/11."
Says Raimondo: “I was warned, before raising the possibility of an Israeli connection to 9/11, that I was touching a live wire, that my career – such as it is – would be destroyed…”
However, since you are unfamiliar with the facts being presented on the demographics of Israel, owing to your prejudice against websites such as Al Jazeera, a few more paragraphs from Ben White’s reporting might do you some good:
Today, around one in four Palestinians with Israeli citizenship are "present absentees", their homes and land confiscated. By the mid-1970s, the average Arab community inside Israel had lost around 65 to 75 per cent of its land. Since 1948, over 700 Jewish communities have been established inside Israel's pre-67 borders - but only seven for Palestinian citizens (and those in order to concentrate the Bedouin population in the Negev).
Over the decades, the Israeli state has sought to "Judaise" areas of the country deemed to have "too high" a number of Palestinian citizens compared to Jews, particularly the Negev and Galilee regions. One strategy in the Galilee was to establish mitzpim (Hebrew: "look out") communities whose goal, according to a Jewish Agency planner, was to "keep Arab villages from attaining territorial continuity and attract a 'strong' population to the Galilee'."
Meanwhile, tens of thousands of Bedouin citizens live in dozens of "unrecognised villages", mainly in the Negev (though "non recognition" is not restricted to the south). They suffer from home demolitions and a lack of basic infrastructure. A serious new threat is the Prawer Plan, with planned mass evictions threatening up to 70,000 with forced relocation and the destruction of their villages.
This planned ethnic cleansing is driven by the sort of anxiety Shimon Peres expressed to US officials in 2005, when he worried that Israel had "lost" land in the Negev "to the Bedouin" and would need to take steps to "relieve" the "demographic threat". A senior official in the Jewish Agency in 2003 explained a new Judaisation initiative on the grounds that "the birthrate of the Bedouins and Arabs in the Galilee is much faster than the Jewish" and thus "we are quickly losing our majority there".
Another element in this regime of ethnic privilege is admissions committees, which operate in around 70 per cent of Israeli towns and permit (or deny) residency on the basis of social "suitability". By "rejecting applications" from Palestinian citizens, the committees "have notoriously been used to exclude Arabs from living in rural Jewish communities" (Human Rights Watch).
Their role is now legislated for in around 42 per cent of communities, and those supporting the law were not shy to express their motivations. MK Israel Hasson (from the "centrist" Kadima party) said the law's purpose is to "preserve the ability to realise the Zionist dream in practice", while MK David Rotem (from FM Lieberman's party Yisrael Beiteinu), said Jews and Palestinians should be "separate but equal", affirming that "Israel is a Jewish and democratic state, not a state of all its citizens".
The ever-dwindling gene pool idea always ends badly for the in-bred.
Just sayin.
Roger Waters needs to hit you with a cease and desist ASAP. If he read the shit you're spewing while sporting the moniker "Pink Floyd"...he'd never stop puking.
Hush now baby, baby, don't you cry.
Mamma's gonna make all of your nightmares come true,
Mamma's gonna put all of her fears into you,
Mamma's gonna keep you right here, under her wing.
She won't let you fly, but she might let you sing,
Mamma's gonna keep baby cosy and warm.
Oooh babe, Oooh babe, Oooh babe,
Of course Mamma's gonna help build the wall.
Correct.Please change it to Matzo/latke/whatever.Do not insult my favorite band.
WORD +1
Israel not racist? you might want to ask them yourself:
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3480345,00.html
Racism...in Israel? 1st ask... Can a Christian walk down the street wearing a cross openly in a muslim country without any fear?
Racism...in Israel? 1st ask... Can a Christian walk down the street wearing a cross openly in a muslim country without any fear?
rhino, do you have the faintest idea which country is the largest moslem country in the world? Do you know that the Christians there are able to set up various churches and conduct their wordships openly? Christians of hundreds of flavors incl. 7th Adventist, Bethany, Rome Catholic, etc (can't recall their many flavors) are all there, except Jehovah Witness and Mormon which operate covertly. The non-moslem there eat pork and so on.
Are you still blank? Then you know just a little about the outside world beyond your containment. A kind of captivated mindless fanatics!
How are the Muslims doing in the US? (Which suffered considerably less from terrorism domestically than Israel.) Oops they were Sikhs:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-19138754
Israel is about as racist as other (Western) countries, and less racist than much of the Muslim world:
http://rt.com/news/libya-rebels-torture-africans-679/
http://edition.cnn.com/2011/11/03/world/meast/pleitgen-sinai-organ-smugglers/index.html
Your link proves nothing.
First I can post whatever video I like, you - too.
Second, you are taking this out of context.
Israel has a very vocal and vibrant public discourse. Its debating culture is exceedingly self-critical (way more so than most-other countries).
Israel is clearly one of the least racist countries in the world. (No, I'm not suggesting Israel is perfect, but being imperfect does not make it bad).
I offer you a weekend in a five star hotel in Gaza, ok? Five star means it has one wall standing.
You can then send us an "unbiased" report.
I'll take it! er, imean can I have it?
"The Association for Civil Rights in Israel's (ACRI) report on civil rights in Israel paints a bleak picture: Increasing racism, restriction of personal freedoms and discrimination even within the Knesset walls – and that's just scratching the surface. "
No it is not apartheid. The Jews have always been separate from other peoples an different, right down to the way they trim the beard and the food they eat. God said to do this in the Holy Bible. The reason Jews are separated for antisemitism is because Christ belongs to them as do the Law and the prophets. If the Jews are around then Satan knows Christ can return when they repent and ask Him to. Therefore... ( the converse)
So put that in your little bibber buddy and zip it.
Jesus Christ does NOT belong to the Jews! He constantly rebuked and called them out as the "synagogue of Satan", and "those that say they are Jews but are not".
What you're missing is that the the Hebrew faith of the OT is NOT the Judaism that exists today. Rabbinical Judaism follows the TALMUD, which is completely anti-Christ!
Need proof? A tiny group, called Karaite Jews, have rejected the Talmud for thousands of years and ONLY follow the Torah. They are reviled and shunned by rabinical, Orthodox Judaism.
Judaism=Talmudism
"The reason Jews are separated for antisemitism is because Christ belongs to them."
Wow. Just Wow.
PEOPLE! YOU'RE BEING PLAYED!
"The Best Way to Control the Opposition is to Lead it Ourselves." - V.I. Lenin
It'll be a cold day in hell when they repent. If that's what it will take for Jesus to come back, the world aint ending any time soon.
There is no apartheid in islamic countries - because there is no one else left!
Hmmm...so why is it, then, that tens of thousands of Jews live happily and willfully in IRAN, and have NO desire to move to Israel, even though Israel has offered them a handy sum of money to do so?
Truth is inconvenient, no?
there is no apartheid but there is extreme intra islamic hatred amongst sunni, shia, and other minor sects like alawites etc.
Dhimmi refers to non believers who used to pay a tax in islamic lands to have right to practice their faith. They could never be judges or legislators but could be minor administrators and legal/medicinal/ trade practitioners.
Today the other faiths have indeed greatly diminished in ME-Asian region, not Africa.
Look up the concept of dhimmi
I want some of what youre smoking
christ "belongs" to the Jews? well, I mean, the pharisees did have the Romans murder him, so maybe you have a point. Did 'g-d' tell them to do that too? i get so confused.... please, just tell me what the bible says so i know what to do. because we know there are no contradictions in the bible, and no one ever tinkered with the language. take it to the bank(ers).... who wrote it.
tell me what the bible says...
Read it for yourself. Study to show yourself approved.
From the limited amount of time and study I've been able to do on the subject over the past 40 years or so, evidently the jews and muslims are as much a part of each other as any group of people on the earth could be .
Abraham was the father of Ishmael, then Isaac. That's where the river divides originally. Abraham went on to have several more sons from Katura, but that's not usually brought up too much. The big issue has to do with these two guys, their mothers, and which was considered to be favored by the Creator.
From there, Isaac has twin boys, Jacob-who becomes Israel, and Esau who has hair like a goat, likes to hunt and eats beans. These two guys have a falling out and as much as they try to co-exist in latter days, still remain estranged. Esau's descendents go on to distance themselves from Jacob's and never quite get over the fact of Jacob's deceitfulness. From there, Jacob has 12 boys and 1 girl by a pair of sisters and their handmaidens. The sister's dad happens to be Jacob and Esau's uncle, but we'll leave that alone for today. Suffice it to say, the younger sister is a hottie and Jacob prefers her over her homely older sister, and this too creates friction in the family.
So much so that her older son (she had 2- she died giving birth to her 2nd one-Benjamin) gets sent to Egypt as a slave by his 10 older brothers who lie to their dad about him and say he was killed by wild animals. While there, he has some adventures, trials, tribulations and ends up as Prime Minister, second to Pharoah.
Fast forward 400 years or so and Moses comes into the picture. The small clan is now up to about 2 million people and the Red Sea episode takes place. More miracles occur and the people are eventually led back to the place Abraham was led to from Ur centuries before. However, while they were in Egypt, the land became inhabited by seven groups of nations that got to feeling like the place belonged to them. They were summarily dismissed from their cities and for several generations skirmishes became an accepted way of life.
Eventually a warrior king emerged in Israel, followed by a poet / warrior king whose son became the wisest and wealthiest person on earth. From there it all went south, or actually, north. The nation gets taken captive to Babylon, (Iraq), and eventually are allowed to return and rebuild the walls of their capital city in the old Jebusite city of Jerusalem.
They eventually rebuild their temple and tout their direct line to Heaven by way of Moses and Abraham but rely as much on earthly political power and wealth as their claim on divinity as their relationship with Rome shows. Then in AD 70, their temple is destroyed by the Roman authorities and with it, all records tying any person with their ancestral lands, personages, tribes, heros, etc.
Now, anybody that wants to can claim relation to Abraham, as the best anyone can do, muslim, jew or christian, is claim descendency through adoption.
And that's why the fighting continues. Go figure.
But don't believe me, read it for yourself. Choose whatever language you prefer. I happen to speak english, (well, kind of), but I suppose greek, hebrew and even aramaic would provide better understanding.
that was almost as good as the r.crumb illuminated version....
john39, you are badly mixed up.
I wish you were self-consistent and genuine as much of irrelevant details you are capable of cobbling together.
Now, if you bring Jesus to the conversation, it is a known fact that lived and died Jewish, in the holy land – same place as Israel today.
Jesus was a JUDAHITE, not a Jew! The term "Jew" didn't even exist until a couple of years ago. Where you read the word "Jew" in the English Bible, in Hebrew, Aramaic, or Greek it would be interpreted more precisely as "Judahite", "Judean", or Yehudi (worshipper of Yahweh).
The catch-all phrase "Jew" is deceiving, because the Jew or Judaism of today is the religion of the Pharisees, Talmudism. The Talmud is the nullification of the Torah, and Jesus denounced it continually, and called it "the traditions of men", and "making the Law (OT) of none-effect."
Of course, there are "Jews" today that do not follow the Talmud. They are a vast minority, and are shunned by rabbinical Judaism. There are also "Jews" who follow nothing, and have little if no knowledge of the contents of the Talmud. Being "Jewish" is either cultural, religious, nationality, or some combination of the above. It is a chameleon label.
Jesus Christ was a "Judahite" (from the tribe of Judah), and a Yehudi (worshipper of Yahweh), but he was most certainly NOT a "Jew", when using today's definiton.
Also, even before Christ, the tribe of Judah began to be infiltrated by Canaanites, Hittites, etc due to their residing in the same region. There is even some credible conjecture that the priest class was taken over or at least infiltrated by Idumeans, which are from Esau.
Definitions are extremely important here. Get them right!
Jesus was a JUDAHITE, not a Jew! The term "Jew" didn't even exist until a couple of years ago. Where you read the word "Jew" in the English Bible, in Hebrew, Aramaic, or Greek, it would be interpreted more precisely as "Judahite", "Judean", or Yehudi (worshipper of Yahweh).
The catch-all phrase "Jew" is deceiving, because the Jew or Judaism of today is the religion of the Pharisees, Talmudism. The Talmud is the nullification of the Torah, and Jesus denounced it continually, and called it "the traditions of men", and "making the Law (OT) of none-effect."
Of course, there are "Jews" today that do not follow the Talmud. They are a vast minority, and are shunned by rabbinical Judaism. There are also "Jews" who follow nothing, and have little if no knowledge of the contents of the Talmud. Being "Jewish" is either cultural, religious, nationality, or some combination of the above. It is a chameleon label.
Jesus Christ was a "Judahite" (from the tribe of Judah), and a Yehudi (worshipper of Yahweh), but he was most certainly NOT a "Jew", when using today's definiton.
Also, even before Christ, the tribe of Judah began to be infiltrated by Canaanites, Hittites, etc due to their residing in the same region. There is even some credible conjecture that the priest class was taken over or at least infiltrated by Idumeans, which are from Esau.
Definitions are extremely important here. Get them right!
Religion is Santa Claus for adults and opium for the masses. Your belief in religious bullshit immeadiately discredits you and every other mindless dolt in the world.
israel is an invention. Boat loads of foriegners landing on other people's lands demanding this is their land bcs of god's proclaimation is retarded. israel is merely a military outpost...a full on weapons lab. The israel gene pool is defective as decades and genrations of hate, war, deception, greed, lies, etc have altered their dna.
Dear SWIFT 760,
Thanks for taking the time to so cogently admonish a large portion of humanity. I'm going to go cry into my pillow, now.
Yours sincerely,
Mindless Dolt
John 3:9 -- Nicodemus answered and said unto him, How can these things be?
Why of course Christ belongs to the Jews. He IS Jewish after all. G-d didn't tell the Pharisees to kill Him. He was tooo much of a threat to them and their power. As the High Priest himself said, 'It is necessary that one die for the people' (my paraphrase-- look it up).
What must you do, John 39? Why you must be born again to inherit theKingdom of G-d.
YOu are not going back to the original text...In Greek, it would use the words that meant "Judahite" (tribe of Judah) or "Yehudi" (worshipper of Yahweh), or "Judean" (from Judea). The original KJV used these more accurate and precise translations instead of the catch-all phrase "Jew".
Christ was a Judahite and a Yehudi, and at times a Judean. Christ was NOT a Talmudist, and condemned it and those who followed it constantly.
How many modern day "Jews" and rabbis condemn the Talmud? (not many).
Actually, Jesus told Nicodemus, "A man must be born of both the water and the spirit before he can see the Kingdom of God."
Perhaps he meant born of the flesh, then born free of the flesh.