Mitchell Bard has a very good article about the roots of the Palestinian conflict with Israel. "It's the religion, stupid," he says. But he is careful to note that it is not Islam itself that rejects Israel; rather, given the Abraham Accords, it is clear that there are specific radical Islamic forces, such as Iran and the Muslim Brotherhood, that drive a fanatical religious opposition to Israel that is not necessarily shared by all Muslims or even all Palestinians.
A quote:
I was thinking about the libel comparing Israel to Afrikaner South Africa, and it occurred to me that the rebuttals, including mine, leave out a central argument. In South Africa, Afrikaners considered the country theirs—that blacks were inferior, and that they should rule over them. By contrast, Israelis acknowledge Palestinian claims to part of the land, do not consider them inferior and do not want to be their masters. It is actually the Palestinians who believe that the land belongs to them, that they are superior to Jews, and that they should control the lives of Jews.
To be more accurate, it is not all Palestinians, but Islamists such as Hamas and Palestine Islamic Jihad.
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Let me be clear. The war is not between Islam and Judaism or Islam and Israel. The proof is that Muslim nations have made peace with Israel. This is not a contradiction because those countries—Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates—are the least fundamentalist and their leaders also fear Islamists. The most vocal opponents of peace with the Jews are the Muslim Brotherhood and Iran.
...
The conflict with the Palestinians cannot be resolved so long as their leaders are driven by a religious rather than a political agenda. You cannot reach compromises with people who believe that Allah has given them marching orders to reconstitute the Islamic empire and, ideally, expand it throughout the world.
This week'd portion begins the book of Numbers. Interestingly, the Hebrew name for the book is "In the Desert," not "Numbers." The portion, which happens to be my bar mitzvah portion, focuses almost as much on the names of the princes of each tribe as the number of soldiers it fielded. It also focuses on the configuration of the tribal camps around the central Tabernacle and the Levites.
So why "Numbers" instead of "Names" or "Places"? The numbers are, to be sure, a unique feature of the opening of this Biblical book -- but they are not the focus of the rest of the narrative. The Hebrew focuses on the place where the events in the book take place, because essentially this is the narrative of the Israelites' wanderings from Egypt to Israel, across 40 years. We move from the giving of the Torah and the construction of the Tabernacle in Exodus and Leviticus, to the final valediction of Moses in Deuteronomy -- Bamidbar is the story of wandering that happened in between.
The question of ...
This week's portion begins with the laws of the Sabbath and the Sabbatical year, and the Jubilee year that restores all land to its original (tribal) owners. It also explores laws of property and labor that will apply in the Land of Israel, and the laws of vows and inheritance.
The Israelites are presented -- not for the last time -- with the essential moral choice that they must face, and the rewards for choosing well, along with the consequences for choosing poorly.
We learn that doing good things will earn God's protection from enemies. That does not mean that victims of terror, God forbid, were sinful. But it does mean that we can respond to evil by committing ourselves to a higher path.
This week's portion describes the major sacrifices that are to be offered by the Jewish people, including those that are offered only by the priestly Kohen class, and physical requirements of the people (men) who serve in that role.
Inter alia, there are interesting commandments -- such as an injection to treat animals with respect and care, first, by letting a mother animal nurse her offspring for a week before being offered in any sacrifice; and second, by refraining from slaughtering an animal and its offspring on the same day.
The commandments regarding animals remind us of the purpose of those regarding human beings: to uphold a divine connection, through ritual.
https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/111878/jewish/Rabbi-Isaac-Luria-The-Ari-Hakodosh.htm
