A Problem Unsolvable by Design

Submitted by Stephen Mullany (United States), Jan 17, 2007 at 23:15

Anyone who knows the story of Abraham, Isaac and Ishmael, and the prophecies associated with that bit of Biblical history, will not be surprised by the intractability of this 5,000 year-old problem. Arabs and Jews are indeed brothers in Abraham but they were born to different mothers because Abraham did not believe in his wife's miraculous fertility. The sons of Issac, born of a free woman, are the legal heirs to the promise God made to Abraham (possession of the land of Israel); but the sons of Ishmael, born of a slave woman, were given other promises (God would ensure the survival of the blood line) and other lands (modern Saudi Arabia.)

Arabs will always claim, with some justification, that they were cheated out of their inheritance. They will envy and hate the sons of Isaac in perpetuity or at least until the Messiah returns to settle all the scores. In the mean time, no human agency has any hope of resolving this conflict whose denument, according to other prophecies, will finally, we are told, usher in a thousand years of peace.

I can't wait.

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