Arab historian Jarid al-Kidwa is a liar.
. As Allah is my witness, in my blood flows more of the Children of Israel and the ancient Hebrews than in the blood of Ariel Sharon and Benjamin Netanyahu."
During the 2 millenia that the Jewish diaspora was resident in Europe and Asia it is almost certain that they have absorbed indoeuropean blood, and others as well. This does not change the fact that from the sacking of Jerusalem on a recognizable Jewish population has maintained its identity, as much as anything due to laws meant to marginalize them.
But whatever their precise blood line, the people who went into the camps in the forties weren't being exterminated for their Turkish roots, but for their adherence to the God of Abraham according to their ancient rites. And the people who survived those camps are the very ones who pushed their way into Palestine as refugees and settlers.
Why members of a religion that prides itself on its hospitality could not welcome the refugees from the death camps into their protection is a mystery we can explore another time.
The slaughter of these people as Jews establishes that, for the world and for the Jews themselves, they are Jews. To say otherwise is evil foolishness.
To be truthful, Abraham was born somewhere near Basra, and spent his life wandering what is now Iraq. But the Jews aren't claiming Iraq, just the sliver that is modern Israel.
And it is true that the Church had come to see itself as the inheritors of God's promises to the jews, since Israel had ceased to exist. And Anglo Saxons have long considered themselves to be, by some mysterious means, God's Chosen, and it is well embedded in the American psyche that we are somehow the Chosen. This peculiarity of American psychology, though, had the strange effect of wedding Americans to the defense of Israel, the "other" Chosen People. American soldiers opened up the death camps, and the effect on the American Church was profound. And the rebirth of Israel sent shock waves through the American Church. Why it didn't have the same effect on the European Church, I can't explain. But from the late forties on, the American Church has seen the defense of Israel as its unique mission.
And woe be unto any politician that doesn't take it into account, if he hopes to hold the evangelical vote. My German buddy once explained to me that Germans understood US support for Israel as resulting from the vast Jewish lobby. He didn't know what to think when I expained that the size of the Jewish vote here is miniscule compared to the evangelical vote, and it is the evangelicals here who are the most determined defenders of Israel.
I don't think he got it.
My Grandfather's last Bible dated from 1948 (he died soon after). Throughout it he tabbed and underlined all the passages related to the rebirth of Israel and the promises of God relating to Israel. It is true that it had a very profound effect on the AMericxan Church.
I have that Bible today.