Understanding the Israeli-Palestinian War
Abraham, the father of the prophets, had two sons, Isaac and Ishmael. Isaac was born to Abraham and Sarah (Abraham’s wife) and Ishmael was born to Abraham and Hagar (Abrahams wife’s Egyptian servant). It is said that Isaac is the patriarch of the Israelites or the Jewish people and that Ishmael is the patriarch of the Arabs or the Muslims.
The conflict, hostility, and discord between the two brother’s mothers, Sarah and Hagar, as a consequence of envy for Abraham, is said to be the genesis of the millenia long war between Muslims and Jews. For such a conflict manifested between Isaac and Ishmael also, and then between the children and the children’s children of Isaac and Ishmael.
This war, the war between brother and brother, kin and kin, lives on to this very day, because we decide to keep it alive. We feed it and nourish it and nurture it. Thus, naturally, it is us who must starve it, who must destroy it. It is us who must decide to cease to be slaves to the fate of our ancestors. It is us who must decide to be free.
(The image is a depiction of Cain slaying Abel. The biblical story of the first humans, Cain and Abel [Adam and Eve were not born naturally], is a story of fratricide. Cain murders his brother out of envy, jealousy, and resentment. The war between Isaac and Ishmael is an echo of such a fratricide)
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