Any believer in the bible has to agree that the land of israel belongs to the jewish people

My only point in stating my own pragmatic approach to the situation in Israel was to make it clear why I had an interest in the debate. While I'd love to have a larger discussion on that view, I am doing my best to keep these arguments purely in a textual basis, I did not intend to suggest you were being dogmatic or didn't have other non-religious reasons to believe what you believe. If I somehow conveyed that to you or to the voters, you have my sincere apologies, though in my defense, I believe you took something of a leap there from what I actually wrote. I think it's interesting that you say up front my point on the Covenant is not relevant, then spend so much of your second round responding to it. In this round I'd like to examine your initial claims more closely. In Genesis 17:7-8 God does indeed promise to Abraham the land of Canaan. As an Area, Canaan dominated a much larger area than present-day Israel . http://en.wikipedia.org...(8343807206).jpgYet according to Genesis 28:13-28, 13 There above it[a] stood the Lord, and he said: “I am the Lord, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac. I will give you and your descendants the land on which you are lying. That verse is subject to two different interpretations that seem to contradict present day claims, and the claim laid forth by god in the earlier verses. In the first interpretation, the tribe of Abraham did not remotely hold the lands known as either present day Israel, or the much larger land of Canaan, but rather, a small section of what we now call Palestine. By this language, only that which is already held is promised, and Jews would not have control of more until much later. Even then, they never held all the boarders laid out in the earlier verse, nor do they today, so "the land on which you are lying. " means nothing to present-day claims. In the second interpretation, one I like better (and is held by a large number of Orthodox Jews) Israel is actually a separate concept than Canaan. Israel exists in essense where you happen to be lying, a sort of home-is-where-the-heart-is for the Tribes. In many ways, this is a more beautiful view, stating that however wide we are cast as a people, however the tribes may be divided, however the Jewish people beaten down, we already have our Israel, and unlike a parcel of land, that can never be taken from us. If you find this interpretation blasphemous, consider Exodus, in which the Bible repeatedly makes reference to our departure from Egypt as slaves. If we are to be faithful Jews, we must take that with a grain of salt because we know impirically now that Jews were not kept as slaves in Egypt, nor is there any evidence to support a mass Exodus from Egypt to The Promised Land. . http://www.jewishideasdaily.com...http://www.haaretz.com...http://en.wikipedia.org...Yet we still have every right to hold the story of Exodus near and dear to our hearts as one of triumph over adversity, in which the Egyptians serve as a general stand-in due to their status as the greatest power of the time these words were penned. It's symbolic value is greater than the sum of its biblical parts, just as is true of Israel.