According to the Torah and Jewish belief, God has promised the Land of Israel, the Holy Land, to the children of Abraham – the Jews. However, the Jewish religious imperative has always forbid the Jews to take direct action themselves to recreate their kingdom. The scripture tells them to wait for God’s intervention, that He will return this land to them. It raises the question then, why is the Zionist movement taking action in the name of Judaism in returning Israel to them? The Zionist movement believes that it is a Jewish right to this ‘homeland,’ and should be able to exclude other ethnicities from it.
Zionists want a homeland for the Jews, a place where they can all live together; this is a right that all people should have. Although every person has a right to live somewhere, an ethnic group does not have the right to live somewhere together. The Zionist movement has displaced hundreds of thousands of people, expelling them from their homes and disrupting their economy; this is unethical and reparations should be made.
The idea that one ethnicity has a right to land and to exclude all other ethnicities would possibly be acceptable if that ethnic group were to be there first. In the case of the current state of Israel, the original ownership of this land is debatable. According to Islam, the Prophet Mohammad made the site holy to the Islamic faith when he ascended there to heaven. Soon after, the followers of the new Islamic religion conquered the area and according to Islamic doctrines all lands are eternally inalienable. Christianity have also laid claim to the Land of Israel, as they too believe in the Old Testament. The three religions are not easily reconcilable and conflict is inevitable.
The term ‘Palestinian’ is a regional ethnic term for the people who have lived in the region of Palestine for thousands of years. They are descendants from the Canaanite to Phoenician; the same people under Roman, then Greek, then Byzantine, and then Arab rule....