Israel

1) Why do the Jewish people belong in Israel in principle;

and 2), Why do the Jewish people belong in Israel today.

Answer: 1) According to the Torah (Genesis 28:13 and other verses), God gave Israel to the Israelite people. Jewish tradition teaches that, spiritually speaking, Israel needs the Jews. Observing the Torah has a greater spiritual effect when it is done in Israel.

2) Whether or not the Jews should all go to Israel todayis a debated topic, even among the Torah-sages. Opinions are quoted in the halakhic authorities commenting upon the Talmudic discussion in the last couple of pages in the tractate Ketubot.

Together with the discussion in halakha (law), the safety and livelihood of immigrants must be taken into account; and all other repercussions.

The way the question is written is to assume that it is not theirs, which is not the case in the slightest. According to historical, religious, legal, and political grounds, the territory of the British Mandate of Palestine at least partially, if not entirely, belongs to the Jewish people.

1) Historically: The Jews have an undeniable presence in the land from at least 700 BCE until 70 CE and this is proven not only by the Biblical account, but from Assyrian Ruins, Babylonian documents, Hellenistic inscriptions, and Roman volumes. Jews had a continuous presence in the land from 70 CE until the present day (even though they were nowhere near the majority) even though they were forcibly deported from the territory. The fact that they survived, as opposed to the Arameans or Hittites who were similarly exiled does not illegitimate their claims.

In addition to the population-part of the historical claim, Jews have physical ruins and cities that are very sacred to them in the territory of the British Mandate of Palestine. The city of Jerusalem is mentioned over 700 times in the Jewish Bible. The city of Nablus used to be the Northern Metropolis of Shechem. Hebron was the first capital of Ancient Israel whence Saul ruled and David ruled until he conquered Jerusalem from the Jebusites. Even more recent sites like Masada document the Jewish presence and struggle to persevere.

2) Religiously: The Jewish claim to have a connection to the land of the British Mandate of Palestine is firmly grounded in their religion. Jews as early as the Babylonian exiles wrote about returning to the land because God had promised it to them. According to the Pentateuch, God promised Abraham that piece of land. (This promise is even acknowledged in the Qur'an 5:20-21 and 17:104.) Many Jewish Holy Sites are in Israel such as the Kotel Hama'aravi (Western Wall).

3) Legally: By international law, the Ottoman Empire took the territory from the Seljuks and Abbassids by internationally recognized conquest. The territory was ceded to the British as a Mandate by the Ottomans as a term of surrender in World War I. (Even though the British had promised the territory to both the Arabs and Jews during the War, neither promise is legally binding.) According to the terms of the Mandate, even though the British were in control, the League of Nations had official jurisdiction. In 1947, the British gave direct authority to the League of Nations' successor, the United Nations, in accordance with the terms of their Mandate. The UN passed the 1947 Partition Plan that gave both a Jewish State and an Arab State the Right to Declare Statehood. The fact that the Arabs decided not to immediately declare such a state does not make the Israeli declaration any less valid. (It is important to note that Palestine did declare statehood on these grounds in 1988, which further cements the legality of this view.)

4) Politically: Jews invested a lot in building the political and physical infrastructure of the land even before they had control. Jews built farms, trained military brigades, created political parties, studied government, and defended themselves. This created a system that was able to repel the Arab Attacks in the Arab-Israeli War of 1948-9, secure expanded borders in the Six Day War of 1967, and hold those borders in the Arab-Israeli War of 1973. Israelis were actually able to exert control over this territory.

Of course, this list is not exhaustive, but should capture the sentiment of the question.

The answer depends on how the question is read:

Reading 1: At what time did only Jews and no other people live in Israel?

Never. Jewish people have lived in Israel for thousands of years, but there has never been a time when ONLY Jewish people lived within it's borders.

Reading 2: At what time did all Jews live exclusively in Israel?

The Jewish People lived exclusively in Israel from their early development as a nation (in what is now Israel and the West Bank) up to 586 BCE when the Babylonians conquered the Kingdom of Judah and exiled the Jewish aristocracy to Babylon (and therefore made part of the Jewish community live outside of Israel). Never again did the Jews exclusively live in Israel.

Answer 1

Wherever you see a military conflict in the history of modern Israel, and that Israel still exists after it, you know that Israel didn't lose. Had Israel lost, it would no longer exist.

Just as on so many previous occasions of violence and military action, there was nothing worthy of the world's attention going on until Israel fired back. Later, Israel withdrew its forces from Lebanon at the request of the UN, in return for the stationing of a UN 'Peacekeeping' force in southern Lebanon, and a guarantee that the shelling and rocketing of northern Israeli towns and farms from Lebanon would be prevented.

Answer 2

Contrary to the view presented in Answer 1, the 2006 War in Lebanon was not an existential war for Israel (as opposed to the 1948-9, 1967, and 1973 wars). Therefore, judging Israel's victory or defeat cannot come from "and the flag was still there." The dominant opinion, both in Israel and the Arab World was that Israel lost with a differing opinion on how badly.

There is still research being done on why Israel was much less successful in the Lebanese War than it had been in previous engagements. The general theory is that Israel was unable to effectively fight a counter-insurgency war in hostile territory. Hezbollah was too entrenched in the various south Lebanese neighborhoods for Israel to do anything less than carpet-bombing if they wanted to get everything, but Israel refused to engage in such conduct and attempted to go door to door. Hezbollah also had superior command over the terrain since they were fighting on "home ground". Israel's stated aim was to either deal a massive blow to Hezbollah, recover soldiers Regev and Goldwasser or both. They achieved neither. (Regev and Goldwasser's corpses were eventually recovered in a prisoner transfer deal with Hezbollah a few years later.)

Israel: As Israel has no oil fields, a lot of Israeli foreign policy (after trying to settle the Arab problems) is to find a reputable source of energy. This energy policy led to a strong alliance with Iran from 1948-1979 during which Israel purchased numerous millions of barrels of Iranian oil. Under Israeli occupation in from 1967-1982 the Sinai Peninsula was host to numerous Israeli-started operations to drill oil from the area. The Peace Treaty between Egypt and Israel requires Egypt to sell oil to Israel at a low rate and to keep it flowing almost continuously. In the recent tumult in Egypt, the Egyptian government has not been careful about adhering to these regulations. Israel is now experimenting with deep-sea oil drilling in the Mediterranean close to Lebanon in the hopes of finding new petroleum to keep its economy functioning.

Saudi Arabia: Oil is the only reason Saudi Arabia has an economy at all. The Saudi family, although relatively wealthy when they conquered Hejaz, had little wealth as compared to contemporaneous European countries. The discovery of nearly inexhaustible oil wealth in Saudi Arabia allowed the Saudi Monarchy to consolidate power and engage in a virtuous cycle of bringing new technologies to Saudi Arabia to acquire more oil to increase the government to bring new technologies into the county and so forth. Since the oil wealth funds most of Saudi Arabia's government, little respect is paid to the Saudi citizens since the government need not depend on them for its survival. This has made Saudi Arabia a very authoritarian state.

Iran: Unlike Saudi Arabia, Iran has an economy outside of oil production, however, the current regime in Iran is attempting to squash all political dissent and is using the oil money it has to undergird its policies and pay its soldiers. It is also destroying nascent industry in the country which could compete with these revenues. In the past Iranian oil was one of the major reasons why the British urged America to lead a coup d'état against President Mossadegh in 1953 (which restored the Anglophilic Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi to power) and was one of the main reasons that Iraq attempted to reclaim the Shatt Al-Arab and Iranian Khuzestan (an area with significant oil fields) in the Iran-Iraq War of 1980-1988.

This is a controversial issue since Israel does not admit or deny nuclear capability. As a result, the views in any direction are guesses and hypotheses. This answer has been organized for clarity into two parts depending on whether they hold that "Yes" Israel does have its weapons pointed at major European cities or "No". There is also a third section for those who deny the existence or possibility of nuclear missiles. The order is used solely for organization and does not indicate which answer is empirically correct.

Part 1: Yes, Europe is Targeted

Answer 1

It is believed that Israel has nuclear warheads pointed not only to European cities but also to Middle East cities. They have targeted everything that could threat Israel. Israel is widely believed to possess weapons of mass destruction, and to be one of four nuclear-armed countries not recognized as a Nuclear Weapons State by the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). The US Congress Office of Technology Assessment has recorded Israel as a country generally reported as having undeclared chemical warfare capabilities, and an offensive biological warfare program. Officially Israel neither confirms nor denies possessing nuclear weapons.

It is believed that Israel had possessed an operational nuclear weapons capability by 1967, with the mass production of nuclear warheads occurring immediately after the Six-Day War. Although no official statistics exist, it has been estimated that Israel possesses from 75 to as many as 400 nuclear weapons, which are reported to include thermonuclear weapons in the megaton range. Israel is also reported to possess a wide range of different systems, including neutron bombs, tactical nuclear weapons, and suitcase nukes.

Israel has also the air, surface, and marine nuclear delivery systems. Delivery mechanisms include Jericho intercontinental ballistic missiles, with a range of 11,500 km, and which are believed to provide a second-strike option. Israel's nuclear-capable ballistic missiles are believed to be buried so far underground that they would survive a nuclear attack.

Concerning Part 3's Nuclear Denialism: (1) All information in this answer is from Western information sources without any interference. (2) The economic status is never a factor when the country wants to be nuclear weapon state. Examples are North Korea and Pakistan and formerly South Africa.

For more information refer to links below.

Part 2: No, Europe is Not Targeted

Answer 1

The Israeli government has never confirmed any information about nuclear weapons in their country. There are no credible sources that identify European targets, and any confirmation was made out of assumptions. It is widely accepted that Israel does have nuclear weapons (believed to be the sixth country to have developed them). IF one were to suppose they had missiles trained on a destination, it would certainly be in the Middle East . Attacking Europe is highly unlikely.

Answer 2

It should be observed or noted here that Nuclear weapons are not "pointed" although the media loves to use this term as it occasionally delves into propaganda. These weapons have programmed flight paths for as great a number of possible targets as are deemed plausible. In the event of war, and their activation, a flight plan is selected and, after the proper protocols, they are launched at their target. So really, a missile can be simultaneously pointed at hundreds of cities or strategic points. It's simply a matter of which target is eventually selected depending on the conflict that the country is involved in.

Also, to respond to the person with a misunderstanding of nuclear physics, in Part 3 fission reactions are indeed hard to begin or stop in a controlled manner, however, if you have no interest in controlling the reaction, such as in a bomb, the critical concentration can easily be achieved with compression caused by a chemical explosive. Most people agree we have a fairly complete understanding of how to blow things up whenever we please using those. In regards to the use of fusion in a weapon, the development of fusion bombs came later. In these cases, the fission reaction started via critical compression of the initial fissioning mass releases a burst of energy which begins a hydrogen-tritium fusion process, which releases additional neutrons to feed the fission process. The entire process once started takes only microseconds, and is known as a Fission-Fusion-Fission detonation, and is to the first fission bombs what they were to chemical explosives - as much as a thousand times greater in energy output.

Answer 3

There is no evidence that any European cities are targeted by the Israeli nuclear missile sites. What would be the point? Besides, weapons such as this aren't "pointed". They're given target coordinates via an upload, either by cable or a secure wireless connection. If Israel actually deployed a weapon, it would almost certainly be delivered by plane, not a missile, for a variety of reasons.

Answer 4

While I agree with every other claim put forward by Part 1: Answer 1 above, I do not agree with the claim that Israel has aimed nuclear weapons at European cities. Israel has had a strong alliance with a number of European countries for centuries and it would seem counterintuitive to jeopardize that.

Part 3: Nuclear Missile Denialism

Answer 1

The information in Part 1: Answer 1 above is economic nonsense. Israel simply cannot afford to develop nor retain stocks of nuclear weapons as above. Israel's leaders are sane unlike the madmen running places like North Korea. Nuclear weapons as described there do not work and have never been demonstrated. They are so worthless that Ukraine happily gave them up in exchange for cheap gas from Russia that she could then re-export for profit - a much more lucrative business than storing useless weapons. The only aggressive nuclear devices used were those over Japan in WWII. They were effectively mechanisms set up in airborne scientific laboratories flying over the cities they bombed, delivering complex devices with pre-set timing. Such things cannot be replicated in missiles and bombs etc. The stuff above demonstrates the writer has little understanding of chemistry and physics and he/she lacks the grace to let other answers stand and allow the reader to make up his or her mind. The stuff above is propaganda designed to stir up the Antichrist's (666) allies in preparation for the Campaign of Armageddon. Israel has no intention to use such awful aggressive weapons. She only has weapons to defend herself because that is all she can afford. Most Israelis work 50-60 hour weeks because the economy is under so much pressure to feed and hospitalise 11 million Jews and Arabs.

No, Ariel Sharon died on Saturday, January 11, 2014.

They wanted a country of their own, instead of being a minority in Islamic, Catholic, Protestant, or secular countries. Israel is the Jewish state.

Israel is important to Jews because God promised it to Jacob (Genesis ch.28), the father of the Israelites, and his descendants. Jacob was renamed Israel by God (Genesis ch.35); and the Israelites lived in Israel during the era of the Patriarchs (220 years), during the era from Joshua until the First Destruction (850 years), during the Second Temple era (420 years) and afterwards. They remained a majority in the land for another 300 years after the Second Destruction; and a minority of Jews remained there throughout the ensuing centuries.

They have almost nothing in common, except:

• All three are located in the Middle East and are among the more powerful nations in that region.
• All three have a potent animosity of the other two.
• All three are considered the bastions of their particular religions (Sunni Islam, Shiite Islam, and Judaism, respectively).
• All three control Islamic holy sites.

The differences are far more vast such as:

• Governmental style
• Personal Freedoms
• Influence of Religion in Politics
• Physical Size
• Nuclear Capabilities
• Economic Structure
• Integration or Repression of Minorities
• Ecological Diversity
• Sanctioning and Protection of the others' holy sites