UPDATE: TO PEOPLE READING THIS NOW, I NOW NO LONGER AGREE WITH WHAT I WROTE HERE. SEE THE ZERO STATE SOLUTION FOR MY CURRENT POSITION.
This was a question that came up repeatedly in several comments to the last post. It is a question that warrants a good and thorough answer. Many of the comments were so nasty I didn’t publish them. Some were just mildly hostile and I published those, but there was one comment in particular that caught my eye for asking the question honestly and respectfully. Here is the comment by a woman named Valerie:
I thank you for your support of Dr. Paul; however I do not understand your freedom message when the Palestinians are not afforded those same freedoms. Maybe I am misunderstanding your blogs? Maybe I am misunderstanding the Palestinian cause? Could you please elaborate more on your feelings toward the Palestinians. I believe in your message of freedom and support your message of freedom. I am not coming down on you, but I do believe freedom is for every man, woman and child no matter your ancestry. We are all brothers and sisters in this world as we have only one Father and that is God.
My answer, point by point:
Valerie,
You are correct when you say that everyone has freedom and should not be punished for using it, including my Arab cousins. I respect them as human beings created in God’s image just as I respect any other human being. Let me just be clear on that point first.
Now, I must start out this answer with a two axioms, those are, assumptions I rest my argument on that I assume to be true. If you don’t accept either one of these assumptions, then you obviously will not accept my conclusion. This is fine, since I don’t rely on the world’s agreement to justify my presence in Samaria, or what you call “the West Bank”. Consider this a window into my thoughts rather than an attempt to convince you that I’m right.
So here are my two assumptions:
1) The Bible, what you call the “Old Testament,” and only the “Old Testament,” is the Word of God. (“Old Testament” is actually an offensive term to me but I use it here so we both know what I’m referring to.)
2) The Jews of today are the legal descendants of the Israelites of the Bible, and are therefore the recipients of the legal covenant God made with Abraham in the Covenant Between the Parts. (See Genesis 15) In that covenant, God gave the Land of Israel to Abraham’s descendants for all eternity.
Now, with that in mind, we can continue.
Ishmael, father of the Arab nation, also Abraham’s son, was weeded out of this covenant explicitly by God. See Genesis 17:15-21. He received his own land and it is not the Land of Israel. Arabia is not mine, and I will never claim it as mine.
As a lover of freedom Valerie, I’m sure you also believe in private property rights. Private property is either property you purchased, or property that you inherited. In either case, you have the right to allow who you want in your property, and to exclude who you want as well. Israel, as defined Biblically, which includes where I currently live, is the private property of the Jewish People, as we inherited it from Abraham, who inherited it from its Creator and Owner, God. (Which I spell with an O for all the Jews reading this thinking I’m a plant.)
Before we get carried away thinking I want to expel or kill any and all Arabs living in my private property, let me say that I categorically do NOT. I have no problem with Arabs living here in my land and doing whatever they want. That is, provided that they do not hurt me, or, and this is key, provided that they do not claim that my land is actually theirs.
Let me put this into perspective for a second. Let’s say that a group of illegal Mexican immigrants claimed that Texas was actually theirs and they wanted to take it away from America. Actually, they’d have a much clearer claim to Texas than Arabs have to Israel, because your nation actually DID take Texas from the Mexicans, and fairly recently. You have no Biblical basis to have done that, though still, notice I didn’t use the word “steal”. You “conquered” Texas in an act of war and annexed it, which is legitimate. It’s what nations do when they have power.
Going back to the illegal Mexican immigrants who want Texas back, remember they are illegal immigrants with no voting rights and no citizenship. Now they start gathering in a group with a supposed national identity. They don’t want to go back to Mexico because well, life sucks there with all the drug wars and no welfare, so instead they name themselves “Texastinians” and they want to establish an independent “Texastine”. So they start killing American Texans and demand the Federal government sit down to peace talks with them on the condition that you agree to give them all of Texastine before any negotiations even start.
Your response would probably be “Get them the hell out of my country and #$%# peace talks, Texas is mine!” And I certainly wouldn’t blame you.
So, my feelings towards the “Palestinians” are the same as your feelings towards the “Texastinian” Mexicans. There are no Texastinians, just Mexicans, just as there are no Palestinians, just Arabs.
You wish the people who call themselves Texastinians would just leave you alone, you don’t believe “Texastine” is a real sovereign nation anyway, and you’d love to just live in peace but if they keep acting like Texas is actually theirs, you want them gone and out. You’d probably kill the worst of them, meaning the leaders of the attacks against American Texans, you’d probably pay the rest of them who would accept the money to leave back to Mexico, and those that wanted to live in peace and be left alone, you’d just let them stay.
The “Palestinian” cause, Valerie, is simply the cause to get Jews out of their God-given land. They have no positive national aspirations. They never have, nor will they ever, actually produce anything. 80% of their GDP is foreign aid. They can’t even have positive national aspirations, because their nation is the larger Arab nation that spans hundreds of times bigger than the Jewish one. They have plenty of places to go if they want to. They can even stay here where I live. But NOT if they claim that my land is theirs.
The only issue we have left to touch on is the issue of citizenship and the definition of nationhood. Theoretically speaking, if confronted with the issue of “Texastinians,” the Federal government could simply give all of those illegal Mexican immigrants American citizenship to try and stop the fighting. This would probably work and would end the whole affair. You could do this because “Americanness” or the reality of being part of the American nation is simply incidental. You call yourselves the melting pot, which is great. Anyone can become a citizen and that’s it. Why can’t that be done in Israel?
Because, Valerie, God did not give Israel to “Israeli citizens.” He gave Israel to the Jews. And unlike “Americanness” which is only incidental, “Jewishness” is essential. The Israeli government can’t simply grant “Jewishness” and call the conflict over. Jews are not a religion. We are, and always have been, a distinct nation.
Just as there are no “Palestinians,” there really are no “Israelis” either. “Israeli” is just a made up term by Jews trying to shed their Jewishness in favor of a new modern national identity under a philosophy called “Zionism” that they even try to incorporate Arabs into by calling them “Israeli Arabs”. That term is absolutely ludicrous. It is a complete contradiction.
The reality is this: There are Jews in the land of Israel, and there are Arabs in the land of Israel. The Jews are the owners of the land, and the Arabs just happened to be here when the owners returned in 1948. What the Jews must do to end the conflict is make it clear that Israel is ours, both to them and the entire world. Those Arabs who are here and agree, are welcome to stay and be treated with the utmost respect and courtesy. They of course should not pay any taxes to the Jewish government, nor should they get any benefits at all. If they stay, they should be completely independent, without voting rights just as non-Americans in your country don’t have voting rights.
Those Arabs who are here and disagree that the land belongs to the Jewish People, however, must be paid to get out. Those who are here and disagree to the point of fighting me over it with weapons, they must be destroyed, just as you would kill anyone who barges into your private property with a gun.
Israel is the private property of the Jewish Nation. Without private property, there is no freedom.
You say:
I do believe freedom is for every man, woman and child no matter your ancestry. We are all brothers and sisters in this world as we have only one Father and that is God.
You are right. Freedom is for everyone just like you said Valerie, regardless of ancestry. And we are all brothers and sisters and have one Father and that is God. That one Father gave me the Land of Israel as my nation’s private property. And if you believe in freedom, you can’t do whatever you want on someone else’s private property.
Therefore, I am a freedom-lover who lives where I live. Because it’s my land given to me by God Himself, and not anyone else’s.
The Jewish Libertarian 
Rafi, you are correct in your assumption that I cannot read Hebrew, but I do read English pretty well.
http://williamwelty.com/docs_et-asher.htm
According to this fellow (who is a Hebrew scholar) I’ve been reading the right English translation of Zechariah 12 all along.
Best Regards, Jack
Jack – I can read Hebrew. I know the grammar and the punctuation and the syntax inside and out. You know nothing. Learn it first, then we’ll talk. You’re no match for me. If you want to continue this duel, email me personally. I enjoy the sport of ripping you missionaries to shreds. It’s a past time of mine, but I won’t publish any more of your comments here.
Shalom Rafa’el,
re-claiming your private property and killing, extorting and exiling over 6million people mainly innocent men, women and children to do so are two radically different issues.
If you don’t have the capacity to understand the difference then you need to see a doctor, bro. Or else, keep denying the issue and hit the delete button on this comment, real quick.
Best Musa
Gutten Tag Musa –
First, factually, there aren’t 6 million of them in my property. There are about 3 million in Judea and Samaria and Aza, and another million in the rest of Israel. So it’s 4 million. Second, I don’t advocate killing, extorting, or exiling anyone. I advocate paying non Jews generously to leave the country to wherever they wish to go. Those who don’t want to leave don’t have to leave. But they can never have the right to vote, they will never pay taxes, and they will never get any government benefits of any kind, because they are not part of the country, just a resident alien.
If anyone disturbs anyone else’s property rights, they will pay monetarily through money or slavery if they can’t pay, and if anyone hurts anyone else physically, only then will they be expelled. If anyone kills anyone, they will die. That’s pretty much it.
Hello, Rafi –
Although I am a Ron Paul supporter, and liked your article on freedom and Ron Paul – and especially
the video someone did based on it – I find your response about the Palestinians to be unconvincing,
to put it mildly.
You claim exclusive right to the land you occupy because God supposedly promised it to someone
you might or might not be descended from thousands of years ago. You claim that people who
lived there for hundreds or thousands of years after that and were forced out by violent means
within the last hundred years (and continuing, for example, in East Jerusalem at this moment)
have no right to it at all. I say that is simply wrong, unjust and inconsistent with your claimed
ideals.
That is not to say that the Palestinians are blameless or correct in all their demands. But ethnic
cleansing (which was systematically undertaken in 1948) is wrong and illegal under international
law. So is placing people under permanent occupation. Putting ethnically defined segments
of your own population in (at least semi-) apartheid status (Israeli Arab citizens) somehow
doesn’t seem all that consistent with claiming to be a free society, either.
So, no – I don’t buy either of your assumptions about your claims to Samaria as your
private property and find your positions to be inconsistent at best – but hypocritical
seems more like it.
I have some Israeli friends and I fully support their right to live freely in their homeland (by
whatever name) but not at the the expense of excluding or subjugating others whose
ties to the land are also deep and quite legitimate.
So, blow each other up if you want, or work things out so it would be no big deal
to drive to Damascus or Beirut for the weekend, whichever you prefer.
I think I’d be trying for the latter, but it’s properly for you and your neighbors to work out.
Good luck.
Douglas –
I appreciate your honest comment. But with all due respect, I don’t need your approval or anyone else’s to live in my own land. I’m not trying to convince anyone, including yourself. I’m just stating what I believe is the truth.
With that out of the way, I agree that occupying another’s land is evil. That’s why the Arabs who want political rights should leave my country. This land is not theirs, regardless of how long they’ve been here, which is irrelevant.
But just so we have our historical facts straight, not a single Arab was forced out of his home by any Jew in 1948. In fact, just the opposite. Please read up on the 1948 War of Independence, how it started, who started it, and who expelled who from where.
About international law – it is irrelevant to me. I’m a Jew. I have my own law, thank you.
You may disagree with me, but I am not a hypocrite. I stand up for what I believe is the truth and God’s Will as I understand it.
There was a man who supposedly said, “that the truth, will set you free”,
but in reality, if you want to be free, you’ve gotta’ take responsibility for what you think & do.
I thank you for taking responsibility for the words you speak about freedom & our right to property.
I’d never deny either, to anybody, regardless what they think or believe.
If Allah promised the land to the Jew’s that’s good enough for me,
and in reality God did, in the Torah & Qur’an, of that you can be sure of.
The Surahs of the Noble Qur’an say you’ll return near the end,
and gather from many nations.
You can read it in Surah 17 (Al-Isra), verse 104.
You’re position on the matter appears quite reasonable to me,
and God willing, more will come to understand the truth.
Shalom to you, and may you, & your loved ones too,
live long & prosper also.
May God bless you Daniel, and me, and all of humanity, with a Ron Paul victory today in Iowa.
Hi Rafi, thank you for your blogs, the one re freedom and the other re the Palestian land question. No disagreement here.
I happened on the freedom blog thru the Edward Griffen email. I started to read your blog and thought just another blurb, very infromative. I am a Kiwi (NZder), who supports Israel, and prays regularly for the peace of Jerusalem.
I am a born again Bible believer.
I have read a lot of Ron Paul’s work on the Fed etc. I agree with his financial stand, and also better understand where he comes from re Israel.
Jewish History is a must study, and I am no means a scholar in this regard.
From Genisis to Malachi, understanding God’s dealings with the Jewish nation shows God’s patience and love, and also his judgement on evil .
The Diaspora in AD 70 and the Jews coming back to Israel in 1948, the consequential revival of the land of milk and honey, shows that the God of the Bible is who he says he is.
No doubt you have come across many Bible Scholars who support Israel?
I notice Rafi that you have no interest in the New Testament?
Why is this?
These questions are asked with deep respect, the Old Testament tells us many times of the only Savour you and I have!
Jesus is the Truth, the Way and the Life, no one can come to the Father but by Me.
I thank you for reading this, no doubt you will hit the delete button, your call.
Please keep teaching and leading many Jews as to the True history of Israel, many are blind that’s for sure, and some are not able to understand freedom the way you do.
We see worldwide cultural Marxisim overtaking societies worldwide, the abolition of private property and true freedom are becoming a thing of the past.
Good men are watching, not acting.
regards
Ross
Ross, if you agree with me about freedom, then leave the Jews alone once and for all, and accept the fact that we will never bow to any god but God, we believe there is only one of Him, He is not divided in any way shape or form, He never rejected us, nor did He ever give us any intermediary to pray to. He chose the Jews to be the spiritual leaders of humanity, and we were never superseded by any people or idea.
Too many people have been asking me about some book called the New Testament and I will settle this matter now so I don’t have to go back to it again.
Ross, as a human being created in God’s image just like me, you have my deepest respect. As someone who believes in the “New Testament,” you have none. I not only have no interest in this book as you say. I hate it with a passion.
You say Jewish history is a must to know, yet you do not seem to be aware of how many of my Jewish family were murdered over your book you love so much, forcibly converted, burned at the stake, massacred in Crusades, forced into Roman ghettoes to starve, and shut out of society for centuries and treated like dirt because we rejected the book.
Whenever I hear mention of this New Testament of yours, all I see is death and murder and fire and blood and burning Jewish holy books, sins I have not nor will I ever forgive Christianity for until all of my belongings are returned from the Vatican in their entirety and your book is repudiated by your leadership for spawning Jew-hatred for millenia.
You probably see me as a target as do all the people writing to me about human gods, that I’m a nice guy and freedom is true but I’m going to hell because I don’t accept human gods. I resent the notion that God nullified his covenant with me. I resent the name of your god even being mentioned to me.
So accept it. Believe what you want to believe, you are a free man, but respect us for rejecting it. Stop looking down on me and my people because we don’t believe what you believe. We don’t need your pity. We are a free nation. And we certainly don’t need to be saved by anyone but God.
We can work together on freedom. So let’s do that and leave this aside. I respect you as a free man. Respect me as a free man as well, and stop thinking I’m going to hell because I’m a believing Jew. Your beliefs are inherently demeaning and disrespectful. The fact that you think you have to come and save me is haughty and I resent it.
Just like a neocon opening his eyes to Ron Paul and coming to the realization for the first time in his life that maybe American foreign policy is actually evil, allow yourself to think for one second, the possibility that your New Testament is an evil lie. Just the possibility. Entertain it for a fraction of a second. What if God never rejected the Jews? What if believing in an intermediary is idolatry? What if to be saved you actually have to be a good human being? What if your book never existed? How many more Jews would be alive today? What if your book is wrong?
Let it simmer for a while. Then get back to me if you dare.
Jeremiah 31:31-34 Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah: Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day [that] I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which covenant they brake, although I was an husband unto them, saith the LORD: But this [shall be] the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days saith the LORD, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people…..for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sins no more.
Matthew 26:26-28 And as they were eating, Jesus took bread and blessed [it], and brake [it] and gave [it] to the disciples, and said, Take, eat; this is my body. And he took the cup, and gave thanks and gave [it] to them, saying, Drink ye all of it; For this is my blood of the new testament (Covenant), which is shed for many for the remission of sins.
I’m with Ron Paul on a non-interventions foreign policy and I strongly endorse your argument for your right to possess your own land; however, I prayerfully ask that you investigate your own scriptures and ask your God to reveal to you whether or not Christ is both Messiah and God manifested in the flesh?
Zechariah 12:10 – 13:1 And I (the LORD speaking) will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplications: and they shall look upon ME (emphasis added) WHOM THEY HAVE PIERCED , and they shall mourn for him as one mourneth for [his] only [son]….. In that day there shall be a fountain opened to the house of David and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem for sin and uncleanness.
Jack – why are you quoting my own book to me when you can’t even read it in its own language and you don’t know any Hebrew grammar? You forgot to put in a comma at Zechariah 12:10. The subject of the piercing is Jerusalem. Not God. Get back to me when you know how to read.
I thank you for your honest answer and your integrity for holding firm to your beliefs even though I am not sure if I can agree with you on 100% of your response, I would say about 80% I do, but I don’t think that it matters what my percentage is as I am not Jewish or Palestinian, nor do I live in Israel.
As an American I cannot appreciate the struggles that either side is going through. America lives in her on little bubble. One day that bubble will burst, and unfortunately it will probably be sooner rather than later.
I wish you well friend and I pray for the peace and safety of your family.