The Promised Land
               Who Promised What to Whom?
                A Venture into Delusion           by G. H. Ritz

   The present state of Israel claims the legitimacy of its existence 
on an obscure Biblical reference. According to the popular belief in 
this regard, God promised the Children of Israel a land of their own, 
flowing with milk and honey that would be theirs in perpetuity. Yet 
nowhere in the books of Exodus, Deuteronomy, and Numbers is the exact 
location of this land ever revealed.
   It is in the Book of Joshua. Joshua [1:4]: From the wilderness and 
this Lebanon, even unto the great river, the river Euphrates, all the  
land of the Hittites, and unto the great sea toward the going down of 
the sun, shall be your coast.
   This is an incredible claim. According to it the land of the Jews 
would include present day Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, and Turkey, the land 
of the Hittites. Upon what basis does the existence of the Israel of 
our era rest? Is it a legal claim, one that could withstand the prob-
ity of a court proceeding? Or is it something else?
   Elsewhere in our writings we have expressed opposition to a belief 
system which requires God to express anything less than Perfect Love, 
such as with the playing of favorites; Perfect Expression, as with the 
idea that God makes mistakes and poor choices that grieve God at [His] 
heart; and Perfect Wisdom, as in the pain, suffering, and death which 
attend these presumed errors of Divine Judgement.   
   As to the matter of perpetuity. Israel and Judea were conquered by 
every power in the region, and Rome. For centuries afterward the Jews 
were stateless with no land to call their own. So much for perpetuity.
   The state of Israel is a fact. It's presence is no more due to an 
act of God than was the original kingdom, it's legitimacy no more or 
less than the political realities which inspired its establishment. If 
moral legitimacy were the criterion for nationhood, there would be far 
fewer nations. The United States followed the star of Manifest Destiny 
to justify its appetite for territory, giving this series of conquests 
the implicit cache of Divine Sponsorship.
   Since God is All Things Everywhere then it is impossible that any 
development in the world could not be an act of God; so we seem to be 
at an impasse. There is no contradiction, however. It is, in fact, the 
very Nature of God that allows all forms of treachery to be acted out 
in world affairs. God is Impartial, neither favoring one people over 
another, nor decreeing the existence of one nation at the expense of 
another nation or people. It is the greatest arrogance to claim that 
Universal God could care a whit about the petty and transient issues 
of the world; the agendas of blind guides, the material requirements 
that the peoples of the world see for themselves as essential to their 
continued existence and well-being; and the often egregious policies 
they adopt to realize these things.
   One cannot observe the state of the world without thinking of the 
old Spanish proverb: God says, take what you want - and pay for it. 
Jesus said, "by their works shall ye know them." The works that the 
mighty (in worldly terms) have enacted against the weak and 
defenseless have accrued a bill that will someday have to be paid in 
full - with interest. We are already paying.
   The Evil that we call Reality, that which moves the fortunes of man 
from order to chaos, has a countervailing effect that frustrates every 
lower demonstration of individual or nation state. That effect is what 
we know as the Law of Opposition, and it ultimates in contradiction. 
Thus we have a formerly stateless people, the Israelis, striving to 
deprive another stateless people, the Palestinians, of the very status 
they desired for themselves. The United States, the world's richest 
nation, shares a border with Mexico, one of the world's poorest and 
most backward nations. In both cases the misery of those who already 
suffered has been multiplied; they still suffer, are still the victims 
of circumstances they cannot control, subjects of leaders whose lust 
for power is alien to their vital interests, and the beneficiaries of 
useless treaties that purport to improve their lot but which never 
fail to worsen their conditions while, at the same time, benefiting 
the ex-ploiters who profit from the selfsame misery.
   The Millennium is here: the time for change, for the very existence 
of man upon the earth is threatened - by man himself. And things have 
not changed since Lao Tsu spoke the Truth:

          Act after act prohibits everything but poverty,
          Weapon after weapon conquest everything but chaos,
          Business after business promotes a craze of waste,
          Law after law breeds a multitude of thieves.

   That was twenty-six hundred years ago. Have we learned anything in 
the interim? Apparently not; what was true then is true today, only 
more starkly real; the momentum heightened, the disintegration accel-
erating, the consequences already making themselves felt; as the con-
cerns over global warming, starvation, and the consumptive, polluting 
excesses our "modern" age, polarize the peoples of the world into two 
groups: those who would restore the earth and its resources, disarm 
the arsenals of war that no longer distinguish between combatants and 
innocent citizens, and see to the needs of the destitute; and those 
who scheme and connive to keep to the status quo a bit longer.
   There is an old axiom which states that those who do not remember 
the mistakes of the past are bound to repeat them. Recorded history 
bears this out. But where once the effects of man's foolishness and 
cruelty to his fellows faded into forgetfulness; we are now living in 
a time when the bewildering dynamics of social order, the horrifying 
consequences of war, and the backlash of overabused Nature are issu-
ing a wake up call.
   It's getting late.