By Stan Goodenough
Apr 17, 2006
According to the Jewish and Christian Scriptures, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Israel gave the Land of Israel and in particular the mountains of Samaria and Judea, forever and exclusively to the people born into that bloodline.
Nor does the biblical narrative deal sparingly with this issue, but devotes extensive detail in numerous passages to it. The heavenly granting of this land to this specific nation is described as having been done as, among other things, an ?everlasting covenant,? an ?oath? and a ?statute.?
A statute is defined in the Oxford English Dictionary as ?a divine law.?
But to Pope Benedictus XVI ? previously known as the German Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger but now bearing the title ?Vicar of Christ? and ?God?s representative on earth? ? mankind today is no longer bound by this law.
Using his Easter message Sunday, the pontiff called on his 1.1 billion followers to support the combined Muslim and Arab effort to (initially) take part of that land for themselves and out of it carve a Palestinian state.
While the Palestinian Arabs openly admit that they see obtaining the ?occupied territories? as just a first step towards taking all the Land of Israel for themselves, Ratzinger is either oblivious to this or chooses to ignore it.
?May the international community ? assist the Palestinian people to overcome the precarious conditions in which they live and to build their future, moving towards the constitution of a state that is truly their own,? he entreated.
His influential plea went out to millions of television viewers in 65 different countries. If heeded by the majority of his flock, a billion plus Roman Catholics will now be lining up with the world?s 1.3 billion Muslims on this issue.
Small wonder the Jews of Israel have increasingly surrendered to what they see as the inevitable and irreversible theft of their land.