Please note that, in accordance with our established policy on this particular area of international politics, comments will be moderated prior to publication.
Last Friday, we heard David Mencer, an official Israeli spokesman, defending the Israeli government on the BBC Today programme, after increasing settler violence in the West Bank had been condemned by the British Foreign Office.
It was put to him that failure to protect the West Bank Palestinians was a breach of Israel’s legal obligation to protect people in territory where they were the occupying force. Mencer denied that Israel was failing to protect the Palestinians from violence, but went on to say that although he thought the violent settlers were a minority (a few juvenile delinquents), the invading settlers were in effect the true owners of the West Bank, because Abraham had lived and died in Hebron many thousands of years ago, and that conferred on all Jews ownership of Judea and Samaria for all eternity.
I accept, as an atheist, that there are people with very deep belief in the divine intervention in human affairs described in the Bible, and there are no doubt many Israelis who think the way David Mencer seems to. However, it does seem surprising that God intended such open-ended support to people like the Russian immigrants to Israel and the West Bank, who are converts, not descendants of biblical Jews, and are unrelated to Abraham.
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