WHEN I SAW a map of how many Israeli settlements had moved uninvited onto Palestinian land, it remined me of maps I’ve made showing ancient Israel’s invasion of Canaan more than 3,000 years ago. I wanted to compare the maps. So, I made them, below. With four maps, I’ve traced their story from the first conquest of the Promised Land to the settlements that Palestinians say encroach on their sovereign land. [photo: Stoned in Jerusalem, Stephen M. Miller’s rental car.]
It starts with Joshua killing everyone
It’s hard for a mapmaker to miss similarities between Joshua’s conquest and the Israeli settlements today. Both like the hill country. And there’s violence involved in both.
Bible writers report that Joshua ordered his soldiers to send every living thing to God: men, women, children, and livestock. The invading Hebrew ancestors of today’s Jewish people were to keep nothing. Everything was banned for them and devoted to God.
These fighting Hebrews captured the highlands. A couple centuries later, King David captured just about everything else, even defeating the Spartan-like Philistine army on the coast.
David’s son Solomon expanded the nation’s influence over neighboring nations northward all the way to the Euphrates River, on Syria’s border with Turkey.
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When Israel disappeared
The nation split over taxes. Judah in the south. Israel in the north.
Northland Israel evaporated in 722 BC, crushed and deported by Assyrian invaders.
Ditto Judah in 586 BC, erased and deported into exile by Babylonian invaders.
They regained their nation and independence for a few years in the 100s BC. But they lost it during that same century when Romans arrived.
For just about the next 1900 years, there was no Israel—not as a nation. Instead, Israel existed as a people scattered all over the world.
Israel reborn
Late in the 1800s, some Jewish people started a movement called Zionism, named after Zion, a term of endearment for Jerusalem. Zionists wanted a Jewish homeland in Palestine. They wanted Jews to come home from their scattered exile of 2,600 years ago.
But their home belonged to Palestinians who had been living there since Jesus was a teenager.
Hitler had a Final Solution to the matter of Israel: Do to them what Joshua’s army did to the Canaanites. Kill them all. Hitler nearly did.
After the Second World War, the United Nations cut a patchwork of land for them in Palestine.
Many tradition-minded Jews and Christians said, “It’s about time. God gave them the land forever.” Certainly, there are Bible passages that say that.
“The LORD said to Abram, ‘Take a look around you. Look in every direction: north, south, east, west. It’s all yours. Every bit of land you can see is yours. I’m giving it to you and to your descendants forever. I’m also giving you more descendants than you would be able to count—that’s assuming you can’t count every speck of dust on the planet. Get up and walk from one end of this land I’m giving you to the other. It’s all yours.” Genesis 13:14-17, Casual English Bible®
The end of “forever”
“Forever” ended in 586 BC, when Babylonians from what is now Iraq leveled Jerusalem and deported surviving Jews. As it turns out, the people of Israel broke their contract with God. He kicked them out like he said he would if they turned their backs on him.
“The LORD was happy to show kindness to you and help you grow into such a large nation. But now, the LORD will be happy to vacate you from his property and get you out of here. The LORD is going to scatter the people of your nation all over this earth.” Deuteronomy 28:63-64
In exile, Jews wondered if they were still the Chosen People and if the Promised Land still belonged to them.
The debate: Israel, Palestine, or both
That’s where everything blows up.
Prophets assured the Jews that God had not abandoned them. Though they lost their nation, their sacrificial system of worship, and their Temple, they still had their God.
But what about the Palestinians, from a people who lived there centuries before Moses grew a beard and a backbone. In most American states, squatters can claim property if they have lived on it for 20 years—five in some states. Palestinians can beat that with a stick.
Still, many tradition-minded Jews and Christians insist the land belongs to the people of Israel. And the encroachment of Israeli communities within Palestinian Territory expresses that like a punch in the face.
Other Jewish people say it’s time to grow up and share the land, like sensible adults. Many Christians agree. They say Jesus put a new spin on “forever.” The apostle Paul put it this way:
“I’ll tell you who Abraham’s children are. They’re the people with faith. The Bible predicted it. God told Abraham that through faith, non-Jews would one day have a good relationship with the Lord: ‘All the families on the planet will be better off because of you and your family.'” Galatians 3:7-8
Two states, one, or none
We’re here. Arguing over a piece of dirt.
I’ve experienced the anger over there. I’ve led Christian groups to Israel. And I’ve seen Jerusalem kids spit on my people.
Myself, I got stoned while riding in a car to Hezekiah’s Tunnel on Jerusalem’s angry east side. That’s where Palestinians have been living and where Israelis have been confiscating their properties and moving in. We were on Palestinian turf, driving a rental car with an Israeli color-coded license plate. They didn’t know I came from Kansas and my driver and guide, Wilbur Glenn Wiliams, from Indiana.
It was a cantaloup-sized rock that busted the front windshield. Made me angry enough to want to punch the thrower, dressed in an Arab headdress.
But I calmed down.
The maps
Here they are, the maps I put together to help us get a sense of how the story of the land has evolved.
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