Who Are the Israelites? (A Practical Approach, Revised)

The never-ending drama in Israel
has recently led to a formal declaration of war.

PREFACE

This is the revision of an article I first wrote back in 2018 which, upon going through it recently, I realized was convoluted with poor readability.  I was compelled to revisit this topic due to what's currently going on Palestine, where for the first time in 50 years, the State of Israel has declared war on the Palestinians (or more specifically Hamas).

This is a difficult topic to write about for a number of reasons.  But the ultimate goal of this article is to illustrate that it doesn't take rocket science to conclude who the Hebrews or more precisely Israelites actually are.  But of course, coming to such a conclusion has a number of significant and controversial implications.

INTRODUCTION

In this post I'm going to use some terms that are familiar to almost everyone yet, due to overuse, interchangeability and in some cases I would say an attempt to intentionally cause confusion, have somewhat ambiguous meanings.  However, for the sake of this article I'm going to define specifically what I mean when I refer to each.  And I think in general these definitions are in agreement with how most people understand them:

Israelite - a descendant of Abraham who, even if not in the present, at some point in their ancestral lineage practiced Mosaic Law, particularly if such an individual comes from Palestine.  For a person to prove that they came directly from Abraham is virtually impossible, but apparently some people do, even those who are not ancestrally from Palestine, i.e. Zionists, as they have have more or less used that notion to stake claim of the land.

Jew - a person who officially practices Mosaic Law, which in its modern application is often referred to as Judaism.  Although such people usually claim to be direct descendants of Abraham, in general Judaism, as with most major religions, accepts converts from any national background.

"ISRAELITE" VS. "JEW" VS. "ISREALI"

On the surface, many Jews that I've seen don't bear a resemblance to Middle Easterners at all, which raises a bit of logical concern when Caucasian Jews claim to be descendants of Abraham,  That is to say that the general implication is that, since Caucasian genes (i.e. skin color) are recessive, presumably there should be some physical sign of their Middle Eastern ancestry if such people actually descended from Abraham.  I'm not an expert on DNA or anything like that, but that's what I would presume.

Moreover, it's interesting to note that whereas Biblically Israelite lineage was passed through fathers, since the "fall of Jerusalem to Rome" in 70 A.D., this was "switch(ed) to matrilineal descent".  Also keep in mind that a citizen of the State of Israel, which was established in 1948, is referred to as an "Israeli", not an "Israelite".

More specifically concerning Israelites, Wikipedia says they "were a group of Semitic-speaking tribes in the ancient Near East who, during the Iron Age, inhabited a part of Canaan".  Accordingly, the "Israelites enter(ed) the land of Canaan" 3,000+ years ago.  Canaan, in modern times, is for the most part known as Israel or Palestine.  So what that means is that, for all intents and purposes, the Israelites are the indigenous people of Palestine, i.e. Palestinians.

Zionism, the ideology upon which the establishment of the State of Israel is based, dictates that Jews are rightful owners of Palestine "based on historical ties and religious traditions linking the Jewish people to the land of Israel".  Or put more simply, since they trace their lineage back to Abraham, and God gave the land of Canaan to the descendants of Abraham (according to the Torah), then to this day they believe that Canaan, aka Palestine, belongs to them.

The issue with this reasoning is that there's no evidence that the indigenous people of Canaan, who again would be the Israelites, ever left to begin with.  To my understanding, those who support Zionism often cite the year 70 A.D., i.e. "the siege of Jerusalem", as the event that scattered Jews from the Holy Land.  That includes Wikipedia which, when I first did this research, stated:

The Judean population revolted against the Roman Empire in 66 CE during the period known as the First Jewish–Roman War which culminated in the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 CE.  During the siege, the Romans destroyed the Second Temple and most of Jerusalem. This event marked the beginning of the Roman exile, also called Edom exile. Jewish leaders and elite were exiled from the land, killed, or taken to Rome as slaves.

In other words, the article doesn't say anything about Israelite masses being exiled during the siege of Jerusalem event.  (But since then, i.e. as I currently write this article, those last two sentences have been removed from said Wikipedia page).

Indeed, "there is no historical record of any such event", i.e. a mass exodus of Jews or Israelites from Palestine, which is something that even large media entities recognize, even if they don't regularly speak about it.  This is significant to point out not only in relation to Zionism but also the prophecies of Jesus.

JESUS PROPHECIES AGAINST THE ISRAELITES

Besides arguably John the Revelator, Jesus is considered to be the authority when it comes to endtime prophecies.  One of the events he predicted is the fall of Jerusalem or more specifically the destruction of its temple which, as noted earlier, did transpire in 70 A.D.

There's another prophecy he dropped which people often cite as pointing to the destruction of the Second Temple, as it was called, which is found in Luke 19:41-44:

As he approached Jerusalem and saw the city, he wept over it and said, “If you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace - but now it is hidden from your eyes.  The days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment against you and encircle you and hem you in on every side.  They will dash you to the ground, you and the children within your walls. They will not leave one stone on another, because you did not recognize the time of God’s coming to you.”

The part of that prophecy people tend to reference the most is the "one stone on another" part, citing it as further proof that Jesus predicted the fall of the Second Temple.  But pay attention to the rest of it, when the talks about the Israelites being 'encircled' by their "enemies", bullied with no relief, and taking the mention of 'not leaving one stone on another' as a reference to the destruction of their homes, and compare that to what's currently and has been going on in the Gaza Strip and Palestine in general.

How many times have we seen images like this coming from Palestinian territories,
of 'not one stone being left on another' so to speak?

First of all, according to NBC, "Gaza Strip refers to a narrow strip of land wedged between Israel and Egypt on the Mediterranean Sea that is roughly the size of Washington, D.C.".  Furthermore, "with over 2 million Palestinians living within roughly 140 square miles, it is “one of the world’s most densely populated territories”".  Therein, the Palestinians live under Apartheid-like conditions imposed on them by the their perennial enemy, the Israelis.  The Gaza Strip is basically encircled by Israel, with only its small western border touching Egypt, an Arab ally.

The Gaza Strip is also a coastal community.  And while Hamas, i.e. the militant wing of Palestinian resistance to Israeli occupation, is fighting Israel, concurrently US warships are stationed in the Mediterranean, i.e. off the coast of Gaza, to offer Israel military support.  That sounds a bit extreme in the name of combating the relatively-weak, even if unrelenting, Palestinians.  But it also very much sounds like being literally 'encircled by your enemies'.

Jesus, being who he was, seems to have been convinced that many of his prophecies would transpire immediately, that the end of the world was truly imminent in his time.  But obviously, that wasn't the case.  Some of the things he and maybe other prophets foresaw, such as the displacement of the Israelites by foreign powers, to some extent happened more recently.  

For instance, he also prophesied that Jerusalem will be "surrounded by armies" and "trampled on by the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled".  Some readers may also interpret that as a reference to 70 A.D. or perhaps the advent of Islam in Palestine.  But he made those predictions specifically within the context of the last days.  And, taking that the Zionists are by and large European, they read more like an allusion to what's going on now as opposed to what transpired a couple of millennia or centuries ago.

WESTERN GLOBAL LEADERS OBVIOUSLY BELIEVE IN THE BIBLE

In 2018, the Trump Administration made global headlines for deciding to move the US Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, basically recognizing said city as the capital of the State of Israel.  The establishment of the State of Israel and its continued existence into the present day has resulted in the existence of "over 5 million Palestinian refugees", with Palestinians now being defined by Wikipedia as "an ethnonational group descending from people who have inhabited the region of Palestine over the millennia" - in other words, the indigenes.

Contrastingly, President Trump's predecessor, Barack Obama, was very supportive of the Palestinians, to the extent that at times it seemed like an internationally-recognized Palestinian state would be established during his Presidency.  For the most part, the international community seems to sympathize with the Palestinians, a sentiment that is becoming more pronounced these days as an increasing number of people are becoming aware of the modern history of Palestine/Israel.

In a manner of speaking, the State of the Israel is the last Western colony on Earth, one in which a group comprised largely of foreigners of European descent, backed by the likes of the United Kingdom and United States, are occupying a land while visibly and officially exercising dominion over its indigenous population.  Western support of Israel does obviously have something to do with said countries wanting to maintain a palpable military presence/ally in the Middle East.  But what I'm suggesting here, even though I may not fully understand or know the details, is that they are also doing based on their understanding of the Bible.

Don't forget that countries like the US and UK are traditionally Christian.  And I would go on to say, even if such nations are being increasingly influenced by Luciferianism, that their leaders probably know things about the Bible that us laymen don't.  Or in any event, as with the rest of us, they are subject to fulfilling the will of God, i.e. prophecy.

I personally believe that international leaders are more-intelligent and knowledgeable than the masses and that they actually know that the Palestinians are the Israelites.  I also believe that the Arab world may claim Jerusalem for religious purposes, but the Palestinians themselves, who are vehemently and incessantly fighting for it, view mastery of the city as their birthright, since historically it is the capital of their nation, as they are Israelites.  This is not to say that the Jews who currently run the State of Israel can't also trace their ancestry back to Abraham or what have you.  But the Palestinians have a more Middle Eastern appearance and as such would logically have more of Abraham's DNA, if you will, then they would.

CONCLUSION

Yes, there are a whole lot of Palestinian refugees, but there are a couple of parts of the world that are arguably facing even greater refugee crises.  So why do the Palestinians always get most of the attention?

The Jews and Arabs have been fighting in Palestine for over 100 years.  Therefore, you would think that when they start going at it, it would be considered old news by now.  So why is it that every skirmish they get into tends to make the top of international headlines?