Ishmael and Arabs

The Zohar tells us what to expect from the Arabs and what we should be doing ourselves.

We learn about Avraham's covenant with Hashem that 1. Avraham would be circumcised and his descendants (from Yitzchak) would also be circumcised at 8 days old, 2. Avraham's children would believe in G-d as the only G-d and 3. in exchange they would get Eretz Yisrael.

At the end of Lech Lecha Hashem promises Avraham that a child will be born to him from Sarah, this child will be circumcised at 8 days and will inherit the land of Israel. However, Avraham's answer to the bris was 'Would that Ishmael live before you!' and Hashem answers, 'Nevertheless, Sarah will bear you a son and I will fulfill my covenant with him...but regarding Ishmael...I will make him fruitful...and will make him a great nation.'

The Zohar records that the angel of Ishmael turned to Hashem and asked for a portion in Eretz Yisrael due to the bris that Ishmael peformed. Hashem agrees, and the Zohar says 'And in the future, the Children of Ishmael are to rule in the Holy Land for a long time, when it is completely empty... and they will delay the Children of Israel from returning to their place, until that merit of the Children of Ishmael is finished'.

As Ishmael's bris is incomplete, they only merit Eretz Yisrael when it is empty. Note that until the Jews returned to the land Eretz Yisrael was deserted and empty.

Mark Twain writes in 1867 (three years before the return of the first Jews to Israel) ' [a]desolate country whose soil is rich enough, but is given over wholly to weeds-a silent mournful expanse....A desolation is here that not even imagination can grace with the pomp of life and action....We never saw a human being on the whole route....There was hardly a tree or a shrub anywhere. Even the olive and the cactus, those fast friends of the worthless soil, had almost deserted the country'.

Firstly, this is very different from the account of Israel pre-Jews that the Palestinian propaganda would have you believe. Secondly, this shows how the land responds to Jews - in fact one of the reasons for calling the Green Line thus was because pre-1967 the Israeli side was green whilst the Jordanian side was brown. Thirdly, this shows that during the entire time the land was owned by the Ottoman Turks the land was desolate. In fact agriculture failed in Israel since the Romans, despite the apparent fertility of the land.

We must ask ourselves some hard questions when dealing with Ishmael and the merit of his bris. 90% of Israelis perform bris milah but for what reasons? Mostly tradition, culture etc. Muslims must choose to have a bris at the age of 13. If a bris is supposed to be a sign of the covenant we have with Hashem, it must be done with the correct intention of the fulfillment of that covenant. Muslims have the correct intention and this is the merit they have over us. In order to remove this merit, we as Jews must fulfill our end of the covenant and ensure that the Jews in Israel have the correct intention of the bris. If this is not possible, we must be aware of the consequences.

By thinking there is an end to the current situation through a political or military solution, we are treating the symptoms and not the disease. The Palestinians are acting in a way that is against their best interests, bringing poverty and hunger upon themselves because of their 'cause'. This can only be explained with a spiritual explanation, and can only be affected by a spiritual change in us. Only when the Jews in Israel keep Torah mitzvot correctly can we bring an end to this conflict.