The Jews and the Moslem Arabs both have legitimate claims to the land called Palestine, and the land is legitimately sacred to them and to Christians. Judaism is older than Christianity, which is older than Islam - but Arabs have been Arabs far longer than the history of Islam. Apparently, it was Philistines who were displaced by the ancient Israelites - but were those Philistines ancestors of the current Arab Palestinians?

And just because somebody lived somewhere three millenia ago, does that mean that their descendants have an absolute right to that same land?

We're all human - how much a part does race and ethnicity play in the legitimacy of a people's claim upon a land? If I live here now and I paid the price of the property, doesn't that have precedence over somebody who claims the property because his ancestors lived there a thousand years ago?

It's a very ticklish question, one that's not answered easily.

-Joe-