Israeli-Palestinian Question

A Biblical perspective

Abstract

After highlighting the Israeli-Palestinian question as an enigma, the article investigates a classic case of an irresistible force pitted against an immovable object, which is the land of Palestine. It has always been viewed as the ‘Holy Land’; yet ironically, her people are in perpetual conflicts and tension. How can one explain such a bizarre contradiction of living in a ‘Holy Land’ amidst interminable tension and conflict? There are two well-known groups of people who insist that the same piece of Holy land is rightfully theirs, the Jews and Palestinians. The article explores the who is who in this struggle; the Jews and the Palestinians; and the role of Islam and Christianity in the land of Palestine, as well as Judaism. The article sets out on the premise that the details of history are easily forgotten, and in a situation where religious myths have been entertained in the narrative, the facts are often replaced in people's minds by such myths. This article is indeed an effort to explore the facts, behind the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, at the same admitting that there may be a difference of opinion based on religious information that one embraces on this subject. This article utilizes the reception history of the Bible methodology, to deliberate on the Israeli-Palestinian question. A biblical perspective that assumes conflict is like heat: that one cannot easily see; one can only feel it, will be embraced. To understand conflict fully, one has to go through it. The methodology of reception history of the Bible, as proposed by Hans Robert Jauss, argues that the meaning of a text is located neither in itself nor in the experience of the reader, but in the relationship between the two.