This is why I am here, how about you?

[Guest shiloh357]

31 minutes ago, jamesdyson said:

Yes, they prosper on America's hard earned money---

Since 1949 the U.S. has given Israel a total of $83.205 billion.

Israel returns more than half of to the US in the form of weapons sales.   Our foreign aid to Israel is not enough to prosper Israel.  Israel's prosperity existed long before the US started giving them foreign aid.

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The interest costs borne by U.S. tax payers on behalf of Israel are $49.937 billion, thus making the total amount of aid given to Israel since 1949 $133.132 billion. This may mean that U.S. government has given more federal aid to the average Israeli citizen in a given year than it has given to the average American citizen.

The US has been pouring billions into the Palestinians as well.  Where does that money go?  It doesn't go to anything except funding terrorism.

We actually benefit from the aid we send to Israel in the form not only of weapons sales, but also in the form of medical and technological breakthroughs.  Our nation has been greatly blessed by what Israel does with the foreign aid they receive and so has the entire world.

 

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I don't understand it, why does our government give them this money? 

If American citizens were allowed to vote on this beggars handout, we would sat no!!

 

No, most Americans support Israel. 

Edited May 26, 2018 by shiloh357

[Guest shiloh357]

4 minutes ago, jamesdyson said:

No I don't. I happen to be Jewish myself.

I doubt it.   Your posts are nothing but Islamic/Nazi propaganda talking points.

[Guest shiloh357]

3 minutes ago, jamesdyson said:

From American handouts-------

Since 1949 the U.S. has given Israel a total of $83.205 billion. The interest costs borne by U.S. tax payers on behalf of Israel are $49.937 billion, thus making the total amount of aid given to Israel since 1949 $133.132 billion. This may mean that U.S. government has given more federal aid to the average Israeli citizen in a given year than it has given to the average American citizen.

 

Where are you getting this information?   Site your sources.

[Guest shiloh357]

1 hour ago, Badjao33 said:

If you were to visit today you would find much of the land is still in deplorable condition and unusable. Most of the agricultural land that Israel is using today is just reclaimed land that was abandoned by Palestinian farmers in the past. All of the tillable land in Israel has been farmed at some point over the centuries since Jesus' ministry.

No, the land Israel is sitting on was originally desert and swamp that the first returning Jews in the late 19th century and earliest parts of the 20th century purchased from Turkish land owners.  There were a few farms that the Jews also purchased. 

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This isn't true at all. Here is a map of land ownership by region in 1945.

You're a little confused.   Davida was actually correct.  You are just not paying attention.

We were talking about eyewitnesses of the land in the late mid to late 19th century and the earliest years of the 20th century, not the 1940s.  It was those Jews who purchased the land, particularly after WWI from Turks who owned a significant portion of Palestine before the British mandate gave 75% of Palestine to the Arabs to form the nation of Trans-Jordan.   At that time, the land was uninhabitable.  But the Jews were starting to irrigate the deserts and dry up the swamps.   Many Jews died from Malaria in the process during that first Aliyah (pilgrimage)  to the land (1882-1903).   

Your data comes from a later period long AFTER the time period we are referring to.   Much progress was stalled in the land due to WWI and WWII/holocaust, in particular. The Jewish population was far, far smaller than the Arab population and the British would not let Jews who were attempting to flee the Holocaust and Hitler's madness, enter the land.  

The British had oil interests in the middle east and the Arabs did not want the Jews to be allowed entrance.  It total, Britain allowed only 20,000 Jews to return to Israel and millions who could have been saved were murdered by Hitler.

That explains why the Arab food production was higher than the Jewish production at that time.   You simply had more Arabs living there and they were operating off of systems and land that the Jews made fertile and usable in the years prior.   

Most Palestinians can only trace their families' presence in the Land going back to the 30's and 40s just before or after WWII. 

So your response gets the entire timeline wrong.   

Edited May 26, 2018 by shiloh357

[Guest shiloh357]

2 hours ago, Badjao33 said:

Here is what else Mark Twain had to say about Palestine: 

Nablus is not part of the uninhabited land that the Jews purchased.  They didn't purchase the West Bank where Nablus is located.

 

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Bayard Taylor traveled across the Jezreel Valley.  In his 1854 book The Lands of the Saracen he wrote: "... 

Again, we are only talking about the land the Jews purchased, most of which was unusable due to be covered with sand, such a significant part of Jezreel. 

I am not saying that there was not a single person anywhere in the land prior to the re-founding of  Israel.  To the contrary, there was a plurality of different cultures and ethnicities that inhabited the region of Palestine according to the Encyclopedia Britannica.  My point is that there was no Palestinian country or community that the Jews pushed off of their land in order to settle it. Quite the opposite.  Arab presence actually increased as Arab migrant workers found jobs working for the Jews who were irrigating deserts and drying up the swamp areas.   I don't understand why you are not getting this.   The Land the Jews purchased was a lot smaller than what we know today as "Israel."   So trying to point to inhabited places doesn't really address the issue I raised.  It might be easier if you stopped trying to refute arguments no one raised.
 

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wheat shipments from the Palestinian port of Acre had helped to save southern France from famine on numerous occasions in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries."

 

Again, only talking about the land the Jews purchased.

As for the inhospitable nature of what the returning Jews purchased, the British Peel Commission Report of 1937 confirms my previous statements concerning the inhospitable nature of the land purchased:

Up till now the Arab cultivator has benefited on the whole both from the work of the British Administration and the presence of Jews in the country, but the greatest care must now be exercised to see that in the event of further sales of land by Arabs to Jews the rights of any Arab tenants or cultivators are preserved. Thus, alienation of land should only be allowed where it is possible to replace extensive by intensive cultivation. In the hill districts there can be no expectation of finding accommodation for any large increase in the rural population. At present, and for many years to come, the Mandatory Power should not attempt to facilitate the close settlement of the Jews in the hill districts generally.

The shortage of land is due less to purchase by Jews than to the increase in the Arab population. The Arab claims that the Jews have obtained too large a proportion of good land cannot be maintained. Much of the land now carrying orange groves was sand dunes or swamps and uncultivated when it was bought.

Legislation vesting surface water in the High Commissioner is essential. An increase in staff and equipment for exploratory investigations with a view to increasing irrigation is recommended.  

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Here's a challenge for you. Contact some of the Palestinians at Bethlehem Bible College and see how far back they can trace their ancestor's presence on the land https://bethbc.edu/faculty/ (You can click on the bios to see which ones are Palestinian) You can also give them your account of Palestinian history and see how it compares to theirs. 

I don't need to do that.   History is what it is and trying to foist the Arab narrative on it, is a practice in futility.  I have learned not to buy into the Muslim narrative on much of anything.

If we listen to the Muslims, there was never a nation called Israel in history, never a temple on the temple mount and there was never an Exodus from Egypt and the Old Testament is just a patchwork of lies.   Oh, and they will tell you that Abraham was a Muslim and Jesus was a "Palestinian."   So given all of that, I don't think they have much of anything to say that anyone can take seriously.

The Palestinians of today are second and third generation and do not have a long family history in the land with the possible exception of some Muslims that did live in the land prior to WWI.  But those were not Arab Muslims.  The Arab presence in Israel is much, much shorter than non-Arab Muslims like the Kurds, Mamluks and Seljuks.  

Edited May 26, 2018 by shiloh357

[Guest shiloh357]

5 hours ago, Badjao33 said:

Here is the statement of faith from Bethlehem Bible College. 

As a Bible College who deeply treasures its connections with the global church and believes in the unity of Christ’s body here on earth, we affirm the statement of faith of the World Evangelical Alliance.

We believe in…

The Holy Scriptures as originally given by God, divinely inspired, infallible, entirely trustworthy; and the supreme authority in all matters of faith and conduct,

One God, eternally existent in three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,

Our Lord Jesus Christ, God manifest in the flesh, His virgin birth, His sinless human life, His divine miracles, His vicarious and atoning death, His bodily resurrection, His ascension, His mediatorial work, and His Personal return in power and glory,

The Salvation of lost and sinful man through the shed blood of the Lord Jesus Christ by faith apart from works, and regeneration by the Holy Spirit,

The Holy Spirit, by whose indwelling the believer is enabled to live a holy life, to witness and work for the Lord Jesus Christ,

The Unity of the Spirit of all true believers, the Church, the Body of Christ,

The Resurrection of both the saved and the lost; they that are saved unto the resurrection of life, they that are lost unto the resurrection of damnation.

Oh please...   Bethlehem Bible college is one of those "Christian" institutions that uses Jesus as a pretext to hate Jews and spew vile anti-Semitic rhetoric ever year at their racist "Christ at the Checkpoint"  gatherings.  They invite anti-Semites from all over the Christian spectrum to come and speak their meetings.   It's all about demonizing Israel while trying to cover their hate with a Christian veneer.

Christ at the Checkpoint (CATC) is a biennial conference event held at Bethlehem Bible College in Bethlehem, Israel.  In this, its fourth year, roughly 600 Christian pastors and leaders from a variety of nations will gather around the theme “The Gospel in the Face of Religious Extremism.” 

Bethlehem Bible College is the host and sponsor. NGO Monitor said of the 2014 conference the CATC “seeks to advance the Palestinian nationalist agenda within Evangelical Christian churches, while simultaneously reviving theological anti-Semitic themes such as replacement theology.”

Replacement theology governs the Bethlehem College’s pro-Palestinian sympathies. It is a theology rooted in ancient Christianity. It falsely affirms that Christianity has replaced Judaism and Israel in God’s economy. The Christian Church is considered the “New Israel” or “the Israel of God.”  For two thousand years, this theological stance has commonly misconstrued Bible narratives to defame Israel and the Jews.   

Within the “replacement” framework, Jews are marginalized— essentially demoted to a kind of spiritual surfdom.  Accordingly, Jewish claims to their biblical inheritance of the land of Israel are null and void because the land is considered now a “universal mission” available to any and all claims, particularly those made by “native Palestinian” Arabs. 

One of the more extreme anti-Semitic libels of replacement theology is the idea that the Jews from Eastern Europe cannot claim their own Judaism because they are mongrel descendants of the Khazars, who infiltrated Europe centuries ago. Accordingly, the European Jews are not really Jews at all.  How can they then dare claim Israel as their Biblical inheritance?

The conference theme of “The Gospel in the Face of Religious Extremism” not surprisingly includes topics on religious extremism within Islam and Judaism. The conference schedule reveals the actual skew of the gathering.  One segment titled “The Challenge of Christian Zionism” seems an odd, incongruous topic in a conference on “extremism,” unless, of course, the intent of the organizers is to demonize Christian Zionism as “extremist” by association. 

Including the topic of Zionism in a conference on “extremism” is tantamount to demonizing not only Jews but also those Christians who support the Jewish state.  This is but one example of how Christian theology becomes a tool to undermine Israel.  

Munther Isaac, the organizer of Christ at the Checkpoint conference, is a professor at the Bethlehem Bible College.  He will deliver a paper entitled “Christian Zionism as Imperial Theology.”   

Assuming Isaac’s paper is in agreement with his previous writings opposing Christian Zionism, he will likely assert that Zionists and their Christian friends are partners in an imperialist, colonialist enterprise from the very inception of modern Zionism in the late 1800s. 

Isaac, while he does not consider himself an anti-Semite, he is very negative about Zionism.  Even the Christ at the Checkpoint logo features “the wall” and the “checkpoint” as two so-called proofs that Israel is anti-Palestinian without any acknowledgement of the role Palestinian violence may have played in Israel’s decision to build the wall.      

Read more at:

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/262087/christ-checkpoint-2016-still-demonizing-israel-susan-warner

 

The Christ at the checkpoint distorts the biblical narrative about Jesus and tries to make Jesus, a Palestinian  and it promotes "Palestinian Liberation" theology.    It uses the term "checkpoint" to demonize Israel's use of checkpoints through which Palestinians must pass when entering or leaving Israel.  But what it does is ignore the Palestinian terrorism and atrocities that the Palestinians engage in that made these security measures necessary in the first place. 

They try to avoid the use of the term "security"  when talking about Israel's security fence. It is just called, "a wall" because if you add the word "security"  to it, you have to deal with morality of its existence as a barrier against terrorism  and in the anti-Semite view, Palestinians murdering Jews with suicide bomb vests and pipe bombs simply for daring to exist, isn't "terrorism; it's "resistance."  

Anti-Semites claim to be against terrorism, but redefine "terrorism" to exclude acts of Palestinian terror against Israel.

Christ at the Checkpoint and Bethlehem Bible College are really nothing but enablers for terrorism and give so-called "Christians"  a theological basis for hating the Jews that live in Israel, as well demonizing the existence of the nation of Israel.  

They are a big, racist stain on Christianity.

 

 

[Guest shiloh357]

6 hours ago, Badjao33 said:

The state of Israel received financial, military, and material aid from not only the US, but multiple European countries since its inception. Without that, the state of Israel would not be what it is today.   

Israel used the money  to make the world a better place.  But foreign aid is actually only a very small portion of Israel's economy.  They export, they invent and have a thriving economy that is built on what they received from us.    But Israel won three major wars without US intervention.   Not one US service person has ever died defended Israel. 

Billions of $$$ have been poured into the Palestinian coffers and all they do with the money is use it to buy more weapons to kill Jews.   Israel has prospered in meaningful ways that have actually benefited the world.   The Palestinians have been nothing but human parasites.

Edited May 27, 2018 by shiloh357

[Guest shiloh357]

4 minutes ago, Badjao33 said:

The point I was trying to make with the  United Arab Emirates is that converting desert wasteland into something prosperous is easily accomplished with a significant amount of investment.  Even in the US, the city of Las Vegas was literally created out of nothing. In 1900 it had a land area of just 110 acres of desert and a population of just 25 people.  

Building fancy buildings and beautiful architecture isn't a sign of genuine prosperity.   It just means you have a lot of money.    Look at the beautiful architecture that exists in places in North Korea.   The country is hell hole, but they have some really nice buildings and nice clean streets over there.  Doesn't make them prosperous.

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It's obvious we are not going to agree on anything by debating this subject here, and I doubt anyone is going to change their minds one way or the other. The original intent of this thread was to discuss whether or not the State of Israel is embracing the stranger and treating them as one of their own just as the Lord instructed them to do. 

The problem with that question as was pointed out when it was originally asked is that this commandment  to accept the stranger doesn't apply to those who want to destroy you out of existence.    The questions ignores 70+ years of the Palestinians and the Arab community declaring Israel to be an illegitimate nation and launching 3 wars and bankrolling day and night, nonstop terrorism in a ongoing war of attrition against Israel's existence.   It's why the call the day Israel declared nationhood, "The Disaster."

The Muslim intolerance of Israel's existence is root cause for this conflict.   On day Israel was reborn, David Ben Gurion said: "We extend our hand of peace and unity to all the neighboring states and their peoples, and invite them to establish bonds of cooperation and mutual help with the sovereign Jewish people settled in its own land.  The State of Israel is prepared to do its share in the common effort for the advancement of the entire Middle East." (Ben Gurion)

The Arab response was war.   

So the problem isn't that Israel is not accepting the stranger.   The problem is that the Muslims don't think Israel should exist and should be destroyed to non-existence.   

So that original question really ignores the history and dynamics of the conflict.  It is really nothing more than a veiled attempt to demonize Israel and misapply the Bible to that end.  Pretty disgusting.

[Guest shiloh357]

5 minutes ago, Badjao33 said:

In my previous post I suggested we all meet in Bethlehem so we can get to the bottom of this debate. We can add Bethlehem Bible College to the list of places we visit while we are there. We can listen to what some of the people there have to say in order to get their side of the story and we can then weigh it in with the others we hear during our visit to get a good idea of what's really going on. 

I have no interest in entertaining the views of racist bigots.   

[Guest shiloh357]

1 minute ago, Badjao33 said:

GDP per capita is a good way to measure prosperity and many of the state of Israel's neighbors are far more prosperous than they are. 

They have more money, but not more prosperity.  It's important not confuse the two.

 

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Keep in mind we are not talking about the citizens of the state of Israel, with the exception of the radical extremists which is a very tiny percentage of the population. When I say the state of Israel, I am talking about the government. I am in no way demonizing the people who live there. 

Except that the government of Israel has made many sincere attempts to make peace with the Palestinians and the only response they get is more terrorism.  That is because where Israel is concerned the Muslim definition of peace is "an armed truce."  They have no desire to live in peace with Israel.

  Israel has done more for the Palestinians than anyone and has made insane concessions that NO other nation would have made and they are repaid with more dead Jews in the street.    Israel's government is not biblically mandated to give their throat to the Palestinians to slit in the name of peace.  

If this had been any other nation and not Israel, the response to the Palestinians would have been to annihilate them, not to make peace with them.   It is pretty hypocritical for everyone to hold Israel to a moral standard they would not hold themselves to if they were facing a similar threat.