ayoungchristian

[ayoungchristian]

[ayoungchristian]

How to be a good ally for Jews as a Christian.

I need to preface this that I’m writing this as a non-denominational Christian, and I’m not a church pastor or a scholar in Christian and Judaism theology. This essay is compiled from a variety of sources, including through discussions with Jewish friends and mutuals on Tumblr, and is written towards Christians as a whole, regardless of sect.

I have to thank @jewishlivesmatter for inspiring me to write this, and @cree-n-jewish-thoughts and @chicocabs for looking through this piece.

It's a fact that a majority of Christians support Israel. Especially the American Evangelicals and self-proclaimed "Christian Zionists". It's likely that you, like me, have been raised to support Israel as an integral part of the Christian faith. Your church would have at some point claimed that Christians have a deep "spiritual and cultural" connection to the Holy Land, and hence we have a moral obligation to support Israel. But, unfortunately, being a supporter for Israel doesn't necessarily mean being an ally for the Jews.

Why do you support Israel?

First, question yourselves: why do you support Israel? Is it because:

"you want the Jews to all be in their ancestral homeland to facilitate the final holy war where they die in the rapture" or

"Jews deserve to be able to live safely in their ancestral homeland and the sole Jewish state"?

If your reason is the latter, then congrats! But it's only the first step to being an ally.

The former reasoning is particularly very concerning and likely drummed into you during your Christian upbringing. You probably heard of “a holy war to end all wars”, and only the Jews and others who accept Jesus as their savior will survive. In fact, it's likely you heard of these from the teachings of Revelation and the end of days.

That is actually core to the ideology of "Christian Zionism", which, by the way, is very different from "Zionism". Despite what others are now saying about Zionism, Zionism is a movement by the Jews to establish and support a homeland (Israel) in historical Judea, or today's Palestinian region. On the other hand, Christian Zionism is basically a duty to support the State of Israel because of its supposed role in the end times – Jesus’ return to Earth, a bloody final battle at the end of days, and Jesus ruling the world from the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. And all of that would come at the expense of many Jews (and Muslims) in that “holy war”. In this scenario, war is not something to be avoided, but something inevitable, desired by God, and celebratory. In return, those who support Israel would be blessed by God.

Doesn't that sound very familiar? It's very much like how some Islamist “Jihadists”, like Hamas, Taliban and Al-Qaeda, would call for a "global holy war" against "infidels". But this time, it's on the opposite end of this "holy war", as the Republican Party of America and their evangelical supporters rally to support Israel out of mere political and religious duty. Given the way how many right-wing evangelists acted and justified their actions "in the name of God", it's no wonder you might have heard criticisms of how they're no different from the terrorists the US fights against.

I'm not saying you are a right-wing Christian fundamentalist like the evangelicals. But you need to look into yourself and question why you support Israel. So, if you support Israel because it would facilitate a holy war and the return of Christ, then you aren't a Jewish ally. You only see the Jews (and Muslims) as pawns and sacrificial lambs.

Antisemitism in Christianity

You would be surprised, but yes, antisemitism exists in Christianity. The next step to being an ally for the Jews is recognising the antisemitism that remains inherent in the teachings of Christianity. No, I'm not saying you should renounce the Christian faith to be an ally. Being a Christian doesn’t make you inherently antisemitic. But it's important to discuss and acknowledge the antisemitism exist in Christianity, and what to do about it. So, let me discuss the two common antisemitic tropes in Christianity: Jewish deicide and Christian supersessionism.

Jewish deicide

Jewish deicide is the theological position that the Jews are collectively responsible for the killing of Jesus (i.e. "the Jews are Christ killers!"). Thankfully, this is no longer in the doctrine of many mainstream sects I know. However, I need to address the root of it, how it came about, and how Christians used it to justify massacring Jews throughout history.

You probably have read the Gospel of Matthew, which, while serving as a bridge between the Old and New Testaments by tying references to many Jewish traditions, was very critical of the Pharisees and often highlighted the conflict between the Jewish community and Jesus and the Apostles. At the end, we know Jesus was betrayed by Judas (one of his disciples), hauled to the religious courts and condemned to death for blasphemy.

From Matthew 27:24–25, the Roman governor Pilate, when he gave the approval for Jesus' cruxification (given according to the gospels, the religious leaders could not execute Jesus without the Romans' approval), he washed "washed his hands in front of the crowd" and claim Jesus' death was the responsibility of the Jewish mob. This then became the foundation of the "Jewish deicide".

There is an entire debate among historians whether or not the Jews even had any involvement with Jesus’ death, particularly because Jesus was cruificed, which was exclusively a political punishment by the Romans ruling over Judea at the time. Even if the Jews were marginally involved with Jesus’ death, he would have just been stoned based on religious charges alone. In fact, the Pharisees and the religious leaders were shown bringing to Jesus an adulteress and asked Him whether to stone her in John 8:1–11 (where Jesus proclaimed: “Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.”). If they didn’t have political power to execute people for religious crimes, why would they still bring her to Jesus and challenge Him about it? But it’s not my place to further debate, and I shall link Rootsmetals’ blog essay on her perspective: https://www.rootsmetals.com/blogs/news/no-the-jews-did-not-kill-jesus

Of course, you might say, we aren't now blaming Jews as a whole for killing Jesus! It doesn’t matter who killed Jesus! It's part of God's plan for Jesus to die! Still, claiming or emphasising that the Jews had any degree of responsibility for Jesus’ death was the excuse used by various church denominations and communities to seek revenge against Jews as a whole. And that began a long history of Christianity antisemitism, from the crusades to the spread of blood libel against Judaism, and it was only very recently when many churches reformed their attitudes towards Jews. Heck, it was only in the 1960s when the Catholic Church rescinded the teaching of Jewish deicide.

We need to realize the depth or history of the deicide libel and the impact inflicted upon Jewish life and history. In honesty, it wasn't any better to even pin any blame on the selected few Jewish religious leaders at the time. It's still an element of Jewish deicide that the Jewish leaders forced Pilate and the Romans to have Jesus crucified, painting another antisemitic narrative of Jews being corrupt, "hypocritical" and "stiff-necked" religious leaders. This wasn't unique to just the Gospel of Matthew, by the way, but generally how the Jewish religious leaders were described at the time in the New Testament, which shaped our negative perceptions towards Jews and Judaism as a whole.

Christian supersessionism

This brings me to the topic of Christian supersessionism. To begin with, I suppose you all heard of the Prince of Egypt, right? Of the Exodus of the Jewish people from Egypt. Now, many people would say the movie is based on a Christian story. Unfortunately, if you think that, you are wrong. It's still first and foremost still a Jewish story. In fact, to the Jews, the exodus took place thousands of years before Jesus was even a thought. Yes, yes, we know the Old Testament is part of the Bible and hence they are also an essential part of our narrative.

But hold your horses and take a moment to understand the Jewish perspective of Christianity. To them, we misappropriated and rewrote their texts (the Tanakh, or what we call the Old Testament) to line up with our unauthorized sequel (the New Testament) and universalised bits of Judaism to preach our religion to everyone else. We all love to pat ourselves on the back, to think we are enlightened and earned our way to Salvation through Christ, while the Jews remain in their "backward Kosher ways" because they didn't believe Jesus was the Messiah.

In fact, as a whole, Christianity is supersessionism. We claim ourselves to have superseded the Jewish people and assumed their role as "God's covenanted people". That we, Christians, are now people of God and replaced the Jews as their chosen people. This, by the way, has been used to try convert Jews by force en masse to Christianity, especially what the Catholic Church did to Jewish refugees during the Holocaust. We have seen such sidelining of Jews even in literature, like Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice, when Shylock the Jewish banker was eventually forced to convert. And there are also a great deal of theological jokes which are inherently antisemitic.

This is despite the fact that even Jesus claimed he came not to abolish the Law but to fulfil it. In fact, Jesus as a Jew continues to commend those who teach the Law accurately and hold it in reverence: “Therefore anyone who sets aside one of the least of these commands and teaches others accordingly will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:19). We Christians consider that Jesus came to embody the Word and to fully accomplish all that was written. Through his fulfiment of the Word, Jesus obtained our eternal salvation. That doesn’t necessarily render Judaism and the Old Testament as no longer valid.

It still remains a debate in Christian theological circles whether the Mosaic Laws still apply to us, which parts of it, and so on. Paul’s letters have not been very helpful as he doubled down on Christian supersessionism, saying that a believer in Christ is no longer under the Law. It has also been argued that if the Law is still binding on us today, then it has not yet accomplished its purpose – it has not yet been fulfilled.

But in the end, as far as the Jews were concerned, the Tanakh was written as a historical record of their people, and was never intended to be used outside of its intended cultural and tribal context. On the other hand, we had rewritten and misappropriated their texts and practices for our own purposes (as you can also read from the Gospel of Matthew). The Jews did not consider Jesus as the Messiah for a variety of reasons, and to them, as Christ has not come, the Law has not been fulfilled and is still in effect. To us, we might not consider the Law as applicable to us under the new convenant by Jesus.

I suppose, however, we put the theological debate to a stop here, and recognise we have differing perspectives on whether Christ has come. We still need to recognise the idea that Judaism has had its entire belief system misappropriated by us, and then Jews have been punished over and over for daring to adher to Judaism and claim their history as their own, and we treat them as fools for refusing to submit to our religion.

So, what can we do?

If you managed to reach to this part, then I say you have made another step to learn about the inherent antisemitic biasedness in Christianity. Again, however, this essay is not for you to disavow Christianity and that we should all convert to Judaism to be an ally, but to recognise and reconcile with the fact that not only have Christianity long been (mis)used to harm Jews, but that antisemitism exists in Christian religious texts.

(And yes, I know you would be tempted to say: but Islam does it too! But it would be the case of ‘the pot calling the kettle black’. Every movement has its inherent antisemitism, and Christianity is no exception. This essay is more about how Christians can be genuine allies for the Jews.)

We need to recognise that we Christians are privileged. In fact, we are the largest religious group in the world (including Catholics and so on) at about 2.4 billion, which is about 30% of the world population. On the other hand, the Jews are a very tiny friction. Ever since our mass conversion attempts, pogroms and the Holocaust, they only stand about 15 million people, half of whom are in Israel. We also don’t speak for the Jews, nor should we speak over their concerns.

Nevertheless, even with numbers, we need to stop thinking of Christianity as the superior religion over Judaism, that we must convert all the Jews into Christianity so that ‘they would be saved’ like us. In fact, it would be greatly offensive, since it had been source of intergenerational pain and grievances among Jews towards Christianity as a whole. To proslethyise to the Jews is basically eroding their identity, like how we have done by taking their culture and practices for our own ends.

We also need to assume good faith when they express curiosity of the Christian faith and want to know more, but bear in mind the previous paragraph: the point is not to convince but for them to understand. Never come down their throats about how Judaism is "outdated" or debate about the Law or the Tanakh. In fact, this generally applies when talking with non-Christians about our faith. We should keep an open-mind and welcome questions about our theology. Even if we don't have all the answers (like the Trinity and the Holy Spirit), it’s fine to say we don't know.

Most importantly of all: Treat the Jews as fellow people worthy of respect. We shouldn’t be using Jews as vehicles and tokens for our own ends – that would be exploitative and dehumanizing. At the end of the day, if we believe their God to be our God, that means they are still God's chosen people and they must be respected. We shouldn't dismiss them and their religion which we claim to supersede.

I also recommend, if you have the time, to research further on Jewish culture, history and traditions. I suppose some of us would have acquired some basic knowledge because of the Passover and so on, but we also need to acknowledge and understand what we had taken from the Jews, and what those practices really mean to them.

Ultimately the main points are: acknowledge the inherent antisemitism within Christianity and treat the Jews as people to be respected, not as pawns of a holy war.

Sources:

https://antisemitism.adl.org/deicide/

More resources:

[ayoungchristian]

Thats why you must root out the antisemitism and Nazi rhetoric in the pro-Palestinian movement

If you didn't know

[ayoungchristian]

Im reblogging this largely to archive this bullshit

Even if "Jewish Zionism" was "just" the "idea that Jews should have their homeland", I'd still oppose it on the basis that I don't support ethnostates nor religions having any geopolitical influence.

[ayoungchristian]

Reblogging from my alternate account @spot-the-antisemitism

https://www.tumblr.com/starsandruth/762231264475561984/sorry-aoc-israels-precision-attack-against?source=share

Submitting the replies on this post from thegreatkhan for the archive.

can't OP has them blocked and khan has us blocked

[ayoungchristian]

so all the pro palestine people are saying “bUt aT wHaT cOsT” to the rescue of the hostages. why are the hostages in heavily packed civilian areas? why did hamas put them there? how the hell is israel supposed to rescue hostages without causing civilian causalities, KNOWING that hamas puts those civilians in harms way? yes, every civilian death is bad, but the root reason for that is because of HAMAS

[ayoungchristian]

[ayoungchristian]

Agreed very much

i feel actually crazy watching mainstream western media describe this as an israeli ceasefire proposal when israel is the only party in disagreement with it and its almost identical to the proposal presented by hamas weeks ago

[ayoungchristian]

Source

[ayoungchristian]

Well, if anyone reads it, Biden said Israel would withdraw from populated areas of Gaza, Hamas said withdraw from all of Gaza. Under Israel/Biden’s proposal, Israel would still be able to maintain buffer zones to prevent Hamas from invading and corridors to diminish smuggling. Under Hamas’s proposal, they wouldn’t.

This is extremely important, as it may give Hamas an option to opt out without releasing all hostages. It’s crucial Israel’s withdrawal be tied to simultaneous release of all hostages, else Hamas can simply back out whenever. Biden said Israel can resume the war if Hamas doesn't comply with the requirements of a phase.

Anyway, this seems to be coming from Israeli's negotiators, which was presented to the Israeli war cabinet but the Israeli Prime Minister accused them of not knowing how to negotiate. Yet, he had to relent.

Source

i feel actually crazy watching mainstream western media describe this as an israeli ceasefire proposal when israel is the only party in disagreement with it and its almost identical to the proposal presented by hamas weeks ago

[ayoungchristian]

I just want a ceasefire, I'm not an antisemite

I'll make it easier for you. If any of these apply to you: 1. If you think Jews deserve to be murdered, raped, mutilated and abducted 2. If you support Jews as a theoretical idea, but THOSE SPECIFIC Jews deserve to be murdered, raped, mutilated and abducted

2. If you think Jews are making up the fact that they were murdered, raped, mutilated and abducted

3. If your definition of "genocide" does not apply to Jews who were murdered, raped, mutilated and abducted

4. If your definition of "ethnic cleansing" does not apply to burning down entire Jewish villages

5. If you do not recognize the right of Jews to self-determination in their homeland

6. If you support Hamas, Hezbollah, Houthis or any other group that wants to murder all Jews

7. If you think that all it takes for peace is for Israel to stop fighting -> Then you don't want a ceasefire. You're an antisemite who wants to kill us. I'm sure there will be a few more additions once Tumblr antisemites find this and add some more.

[ayoungchristian]

[ayoungchristian]

What does indigenous actually mean?

Get ready for a long ass post because I have homework to do am tired of people (intentionally?) misunderstanding what this means.

Among many arguments people have made in regards to the overall Israeli-Arab Conflict, it is that either Palestinians or Jews (or both) either are or are not indigenous to the Levant. It causes a lot of shouting, anger, and stupid comments such as "go back to where you came from," on both sides. (Arguably weaponized more against Jews).

So. What does indigenous mean?

First, here's what google has to say:

Indigenous means that it derives from [place]. That place can be anywhere, as long as [object/person/item] is naturally found to be in [any place], it is indigenous to that place. Think of plants. There are native species and invasive species. One belongs in a place, the other is imported (and usually damaging).

Now, let's take a look at the Wikipedia entry, for Indigenous people:

The first thing to note is that there is no consensus. Which means the parameters under which people are described as indigenous can vary among groups (such as the UN, the people themselves, other int'l orgs, different countries, etc.). Fine, that's okay, humans usually can't agree on everything.

Let's read further:

Okay, so here it says that the idea of an indigenous people is essentially a cluster of people who have a variety of things in common ("cultural difference from other groups in a state, a special relationship with their traditional territory, and an experience of subjugation and discrimination under a dominant cultural model")

It's a solid working start. (Personally, I really don't like the subjugation aspect--people(hood) should not be defined by how others treat(ed) them, but what do I know. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ ) That's essentially the Wikipedia/Google definition. Vague-ish, but something that can be quantified.

Assuming these guidelines, let's take Jewish people:

Cultural difference from other groups? YEP! Jews have always been different then their host countries (which is what has sometimes wrought upon us their wrath).

Relationship with traditional territory? YEP! We have hundreds of practices that are dependent on the land of Israel. SHORT list: Tu'Bshvat, the need for Pesach to be in the spring time for Israel, shmitta/yovel, and bikkurim, among many many others.

Subjugation/discrimination? Yes. Please, don't make me go into it.

"Okay, but Wikipedia is 🫠🫠." Maybe. In any case, let's take the U.N. framework.

Here again, there's no actual legal definition. There is only a guideline. It's more descriptive than the Wikipedia one, and thankfully takes out the requirement of being discriminated against. (That's a valid point that indigenous people are disproportionately affected by colonial/dominant discrimination and subjugation, I just don't like that being a definition of indigenous.)

Again, let's put the Jews through it:

Self- identification as indigenous peoples at the individual level and accepted by the community as their member.

Historical continuity with pre-colonial and/or pre-settler societies. Yep. Jews have been in Jerusalem, Safed, Tiberias, Hebron, B'eer Sheva, and generally through the land of Israel going back at least 2,000 years.

Strong link to territories and surrounding natural resources. As stated above, yes, Jews have links to the land. The fact that the 7 species are native to the land of Israel too, is proof.

Distinct social, economic or political systems. Jews have all of this, the Jewish ideal political system (like, halachically) is not a democracy, our social systems are different, and so is our economy.

Distinct language, culture and beliefs. Jewish language is Hebrew/Lashon Hakodesh, we have a separate culture and definitely we do not integrate into the Christian values of the Western world (side note-- I HATE "Judea-Christian values" they do not exist), nor the Islamic values of the Middle East, Far East, or anything else that still exists today.

Form non-dominant groups of society. We're .02% of the global population. There are literally more ace people than Jews. More redheads. More lefties.

Resolve to maintain and reproduce their ancestral environments and systems as distinctive peoples and communities. Oh how we've tried. Jewish people have always yearned to go back to Jerusalem/Israel. It's in hundreds of our songs from thousands of years back, our prayers (multiple times a day), and finally manifested into a political movement in order to actualize that resolve.

So (claps hands). Here, you see exactly how Jews are indigenous to Israel.

I will not speak about Palestinian indigeneity. I am not an expert in their culture specifically. I will say that on a base level at this point they've become an indigenous people if only out of stubborn sheer willpower and antisemitism .

Note: What you do NOT see here in any framework, is blood quantity or skin color. Why? You ask? Because those are psuedo-scientific ways of evaluating people. DNA does not explain how one's culture is. Skin color does not prove one's culture. To believe otherwise is to engage in false Nazi-esque racism.

Why does this matter?

Because telling Jews to "go back to where they came from," referring to Europe is ignorant. The only reason why Jews were there in the first place is because of colonialism. Regardless of how many generations a Jewish person has spent in Europe, they are still indigenous to the Levant as (current) location does not matter as much as ethnogenesis.

As an aside, Jews have ALSO been in the Middle East, Africa, Asia, South and North America. NONE of this negates their indigeneity to the Levant, it just proves the catastrophic effects of colonialsim.

[ayoungchristian]

Okay, story time.

Years ago I was writing a paper for uni about a queer reading of David and Jonathan, and why it's totally legit (even intentionally invited by the text).

When I started doing my research for it, I discovered that while the queer reading of David and Jonathan is pretty well known in queer circles, there's very little in the way of actual academic material on it, whether we're talking about a literary, religious or historical analysis of the text and this interpretation of it. I had maybe 2-3 essays about queer reading of ANY part of the Bible. And most of ot? Was actually not that great. Very little of it was about anything objective, most of it was just a suggestion for a different subjective reading of the text. Which is legit, but not enough. Most of the time, for an interpretation to be considered legit, we have to show that it relies on something that objectively exists in the text.

And then I found this paper by a guy determined to DISPROVE the queer reading of David and Jonathan. Now when I barely have material that's in favor of a queer reading of David and Jonathan, why would I be wasting my time reading what was written against it? But I'm a weirdo, and I always wanna know the counterarguments that can be used against me, too. Yeah, even if I disagree with them.

AND OMG AM I HAPPY I'M LIKE THAT.

Because this guy? Did a PHENOMENAL job at proving that objectively, the bow is the symbol of masculinity to the ancient Israelites. This is relevant because a biblical verse mentions that Prince Jonathan gave David his bow. I'm gonna say it again, this guy proved that for any Israelite back then, regardless of the subjective place they come from, when they were reading the text, what they would get from it is that JONATHAN GAVE DAVID THE PHALLIC SYMBOL OF HIS MASCULINITY. Tell me that doesn't align perfectly with a queer reading...

So why was this guy, who's trying to disprove the queer reading of David and Jonathan, proving the gay potential of this moment? Because to him, if Prince Jonathan has a symbol of masculinity, that means he's a masculine man, and no masculine man can be gay. Yep, the guy writing this paper was so blinded by his own bigotry, homophobia and misconceptions about masculinity and sexual orientation, that he didn't even realize he was handing me a valuable tool to prove queer readings of David and Jonathan are 100% legit.

Why am I mentioning this now all of a sudden?

Because sometimes the haters and anti's of a fandom are actually precisely like that guy, and it both amuses me to no end, and also makes me wonder if they realize how much their efforts sometimes backfire, and instead of destroying my love for and belief in a ship, they actually end up reinforcing it.

If you ever feel down because of haters in your fandom, just remember this.

[ayoungchristian]

[ayoungchristian]

Do I want a Palestinian state recognised? Yes. Obviously. I don't believe that I can think the Jewish people deserve a state, but not extend the same right to the Palestinians (boarders are a different discussion).

My problem with the announcement from the UN is that once again, they are ignoring half the issues (the ones that affect Israelis and Jews) in favour of trying to regain their legitimacy in the court of public opinion.

Hamas can have 0 (zero) part in the running of a Palestinian state. They are aware of this, it's why they don't actually want one. The worst thing for Hamas is suddenly having to follow international law or face consequences in a way they never have had to before when posing as a "legitimate resistance" (news flash: they aren't). If Hamas becomes a government of a nation, they are beholden to all sorts of things... Like the responsibility to protect their own citizens, which they openly admit they do not at the moment and they do not believe it is their job to, despite being elected to do just that.

The moment Palestine becomes a state, while still holding hostages, openly and proudly holding abducted civilians from another legitimate state, they lose all sorts of standing on the international stage because they are acting in a hostile way, have declared war, and it becomes very difficult to get any international support on a governmental level.

Additionally, if you look at Afghanistan, the Taliban now run the country and interviews with members of the Taliban have shown they HATE it. They are bored, and uninterested. They enjoyed the fighting because it was exciting. Actual admin, the neccesary behaviour to run a successful country is not what they want to be doing. They want to be fighting.

And Hamas will be exactly the same.

Theyndo not want peace, they do not really want a state. They want death, and publicity and money and this war is the best way for them to get that.

[ayoungchristian]

Do I want a Palestinian state recognised? Yes. Obviously. I don't believe that I can think the Jewish people deserve a state, but not extend the same right to the Palestinians (boarders are a different discussion).

My problem with the announcement from the UN is that once again, they are ignoring half the issues (the ones that affect Israelis and Jews) in favour of trying to regain their legitimacy in the court of public opinion.

Hamas can have 0 (zero) part in the running of a Palestinian state. They are aware of this, it's why they don't actually want one. The worst thing for Hamas is suddenly having to follow international law or face consequences in a way they never have had to before when posing as a "legitimate resistance" (news flash: they aren't). If Hamas becomes a government of a nation, they are beholden to all sorts of things... Like the responsibility to protect their own citizens, which they openly admit they do not at the moment and they do not believe it is their job to, despite being elected to do just that.

The moment Palestine becomes a state, while still holding hostages, openly and proudly holding abducted civilians from another legitimate state, they lose all sorts of standing on the international stage because they are acting in a hostile way, have declared war, and it becomes very difficult to get any international support on a governmental level.

Additionally, if you look at Afghanistan, the Taliban now run the country and interviews with members of the Taliban have shown they HATE it. They are bored, and uninterested. They enjoyed the fighting because it was exciting. Actual admin, the neccesary behaviour to run a successful country is not what they want to be doing. They want to be fighting.

And Hamas will be exactly the same.

Theyndo not want peace, they do not really want a state. They want death, and publicity and money and this war is the best way for them to get that.