From the FrontPage article; this is Bat Ye’or talking: “According to the Qur’an, Ibrahim (Abraham), the biblical figures, the prophet and Jesus were all Muslims prophets who preached Muhammad message, Islam (i.e. “submission to Allah”). They were not Jews and they are respected as Muslims, not as Jews. Here is the source of conflict. Muslims do not accept the Judeo-Christian interpretation of history. They do not see their religion as the third, but as the first, the religion of Adam and Eve. This is why they do not recognise the historical legitimacy of Israel today. Israel has no roots in the Holy Land because its biblical history is considered to be a Muslim history. David and Salomon were Muslim kings, and the Israelite prophets Muslims, as well as Jesus. It follows that Jews and Christians have no history and their beliefs are wrong. The only true version of biblical events is the qur’anic one - which is very different from the Bible - because the Qur’an is declared to be verbatim the word of Allah. This is the interpretation of Islamists, but not all Muslims share this view.”

This is indeed the case. I have several fundamentalist Muslim coworkers who have told me the very same thing. And this, in a nutshell, is why there can be no fruitful interaction between (Islamist) Muslims and Christians/Jews. We disagree on first principles—we disagree about which is the true story of God’s intercourse with man. Consequently, there is no common ground on which either side can stand to advance their arguments. Their story shuts us out, and ours shuts them out, completely.

Bubba wrote,

“And this, in a nutshell, is why there can be no fruitful interaction between (Islamist) Muslims and Christians/Jews. We disagree on first principles—we disagree about which is the true story of God’s intercourse with man. Consequently, there is no common ground on which either side can stand to advance their arguments. Their story shuts us out, and ours shuts them out, completely.”

If that’s the case, it only makes it all the more necessary for us to stand our ground: Israel not only shall not succumb to her mortal enemies, but may even have to expand further — we’ll see.

And if the other side keeps it up, we’ll need to remind them that having objections to territory changing hands isn’t something only Moslems are capable of — perhaps our side should take a second look at the question of Constantinople, the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire and direct heir to all the unimaginably vast culture not only of Rome but of the Hellenic and Hellenistic worlds, not to mention the center of the Greek/Eastern Orthodox Church — absolutely a primordial foundational pillar of Europe’s and the West’s whole being, from the time the Emperor Constantine established his capital at Byzantium in AD 330 onward. The historical fact of that city’s — of that culture’s — disastrous take-over by Islam in 1453 is a matter of concern for Euro/Christian traditionalists such as I and others.

Maybe we want it back …

“Maybe we want it back.”

Mideastern Muslim says to American: “You Americans are engaged in a second crusade against us.”

American answers: “Would that it were so!”

Unadorned has mentioned several times the possibility of Israel’s expanding from her present territorial boundaries. This sounded familiar — it was a Biblical echo. ;-)

Even under Moses, Israel took possession of the entire East Bank, including much of what is now ruled by Jordan. This territory is included then in the historic, and by extension the prophetic, boundaries of Israel. (Num 32. Also Judges 11:13-26)