We must do our best to stay away from Israeli lies.  East Jerusalem is ZION, the city of the great King, “loved by Yahweh more than all of Jacob’s residences”. See Psalms 48 and 87. If those songs mean nothing in the modern era people can say and do anything to overturn the facts about kings and kingdoms.

Still we pray for Jerusalem

Extremists and xenophobes will never prevail.  The wisest path for civilized peoples has already been discredited with the so-called regional interests of the military and economic overlords.  Russia, China, the United Kingdom, the United States, France and Germany are interested in what works for them,  but those born-there are going to continue to suffer and die. What more naked brutality and inhumanity in the name of “self-defence” do people need to see?

There is not even lipservice to the collective security of all the people in the land, much less a commitment to be an accountable occupying power. The promise to Abraham keeps running into trouble as long as people are willing to deny the history and critical function of Gentiles in the temple and God’s reproof of both ancient Israel and Judah. We can do nothing but pray.

The transgressions in East Jerusalem

Egyptians, people of Babel (Iraqi?), natives of Canaan (Peleshet), Tyrians (Lebanese), and Ethiopians cannot be denied the right to live in Zion, neither by means of a xenophobic policy or mindset. I can see not any way for Abraham’s dream of a multitudinous family to be fulfilled not include the people of his native Ur (in Mesopotamia) or Egyptians (the nativeland of his wife Sarai). No observer of the Bible’s international scope can settle into a purely Jewish population of Canaan. Tyrians and Ethiopians were respectively invited into temple construction and worship. Folding the umbrella of Palestine’s population in order to bring about an exclusionary policy is dead in the water. Some people seem to have learned nothing about God’s regard for all humans.

What ever became of Abraham’s multitudinous family?

We have seen how Gentiles get treated; essentially with little humanity, and little respect for their place in God’s house and heart. Abraham would be shocked.