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List of Chapters | Main Menu | Contact | About Futurepower ® The problems between the Jews and the Arabs have existed for 3,200 years. The first book of the ancient Jewish writing says that the Jews are the "chosen people" of God. That writing says that Arabs are descended from an illegitimate child of the Jewish tribal founder, Abraham, and a slave girl that he owned. Judging from the writing, the idea that the Jews were the chosen people of God seems to have been very popular with the Jews. For example, the ancient writing justifies a lot of violence toward neighboring people using this concept. Note that there is no intent here to say anything about religion. This is a discussion of culture only. Certainly no one would claim that a feeling of superiority is part of any religion. Certainly no one should claim that violence is part of any religion. People often do claim that they were motivated to a violent act by their religion. When they claim that, they are talking complete nonsense. They are only using religion as a justification for acting out their inner mental conflict. It is my theory, and it is only a theory, that the claim of being chosen by God has caused an insularity in the Jewish culture that is evident today among even some of those Jews who don't read the ancient writing. This insularity is interpreted as a feeling of superiority by other people, including some Arabs. It is not difficult to understand the thoughts of the Arabs. It is not difficult to understand that it is annoying to live next to a group of people who have claimed that they are superior, and that Arabs are inferior. It is not difficult to understand that it is annoying to live near people who claim that you are a descendent of a bastard and that God doesn't like you as much. It is also not difficult to understand that the constant claims of the Jews of superiority over everyone else (including people of European descent like the author of this book) are mentally de-centering to Arabs who happen to be psychologically conflicted. We have detailed records of early Jewish violence, because the Jews carefully kept written records. These records are called the "Old Testament" of the Bible by Christians. However, the Old Testament is entirely a Jewish record because there were no Christians until after the birth of Jesus Christ, which happened much later. Abraham, the founder of the Jewish tribe, was a slave owner. He got his slaves by warring with neighboring tribes. There are many, many stories in the ancient Jewish books about the Jews participating in violent activities and being proud of it. There is much valuable wisdom in the ancient books. However, people were so ignorant then that it is difficult for a modern person to understand how ignorant they were. Not everything they thought and said was valuable. There are many examples of ideas that apparently seemed reasonable then, but because we are far more knowledgeable we know they are mistaken. For example, the ancient text called Genesis [nccbuscc.org] or Bereishith [breslov.com], chapter 30, verse 37, says that a man named Jacob caused the offspring of his animals to have spotted fur by having them see specially prepared wooden branches while they were mating. Now we understand genetics, and no one thinks Jacob's method would be effective. Hopefully we can recognize that we need to put some of the old ways behind us. Violence was a way of life in the ancient world, among many cultures, not just that of the Jews. Hopefully we can recognize that, even though the stories in the ancient books justified violence, violence is self-destructive. When ancient people believed in violence, they were mistaken. "That which is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor. That is the whole of the Torah; the rest is commentary." -- Hillel, a famous Jewish scholar [mechon-mamre.org] (See the end of the third paragraph.) List of Chapters | Main Menu | Contact | About Futurepower ® | Go to top Futurepower
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