Quotes about Judea

John Adams

I really wish the Jews again in Judea, an independent nation.

This quotation is very surprising for most people. Reading the text alone, most of us would assume that it came from someone when the Zionist movement was fighting for a Jewish homeland in what is now Israel. Or just before the UN decision in 1947 to partition Palestine. However, it came from one of our founding fathers in Colonial times. Adams was by no means the only Founding Father with this point of view. Fundamentalist Protestants have put much credence in God’s granting the area for the Jewish People—then as today.

Cassius Dio

Though a breach was made in the wall by means of engines, nevertheless the capture of the place did not immediately follow even then. On the contrary, the defenders killed great numbers [of Romans] who tried to crowd through the opening and they also set fire to some of the buildings nearby, hoping thus to check the further progress of the Romans. Nevertheless, the soldiers, because of their superstition, did not immediately rush in but at last, under compulsion from Titus, they made their way inside. Then the Jews defended themselves much more vigorously than before, as if they had discovered a piece of rare good fortune in being able to fight near the Temple and fall in its defense.” The populace was stationed below in the court and the elders on the steps and the priests in the Sanctuary itself. And though they were but a handful fighting against a far superior force, they were not conquered until part of the Temple was set on fire. Then they met their death willingly, some throwing themselves on the swords of the Romans, some slaying one another, others taking their own lives and still others leaping into the flames. And it seemed to everybody and especially to them that so far from being destruction, it was victory and salvation and happiness to them that they perished along with the Temple. While the holy house (The Temple) was on fire, everything was plundered that came to hand, and ten thousand of those that were caught were slain; nor was there a commiseration of any age…but children and old men…and priests, were all slain in the same manner….The flame was also carried a long way, and made an echo, together with the groans of those who were slain…one would have thought the whole city would have been on fire. Nor can one imagine anything greater and more terrible than this noise.

Describing the conquest and destruction of Jerusalem and the Second Temple in 70 AD.

Steven E. Lobell

The main difference [in Israel] between the relative moderates and the relative radicals revolves around their disagreement over the relative importance of the State of Israel and the land of Israel.

The “radicals” refer to the extremely conservative, religiously-oriented Israelis. To them the only real and important element is the land that God gave to the Jewish people. They see the State as artificial and whose only legitimate role is to protect and defend the land of Israel. God has ordained the laws in the Talmud—the first 5 Books of the Old Testament. They do not believe in democracy but seek a Hebrew Theocracy of the Ancient Jews before they made the error of having kings. Some of them opposed the civil government of Israel when the country was founded via a UN resolution and a few would not even defend the new country under a civil government. The relative moderates see Israel as a nation state where the land of Israel can be changed, negotiated, traded as other nations do with their borders. One irony is no one knows exactly the borders of the land which God gave to the Jews and this is why archeology is so politically important in Israel compared to other countries.

Chris Matthews

Let God take care of history. Don’t force it by some sort of whacky alliance between the religious right and Israel in order to bring about some Biblical prophesy.

Donald Trump

When has the UN done any good. All they do is damage.

He was responding to the United Nations Security Counsil resolution calling on Israel to stop the building of settlemetns in the "occupied" territories. Normally such resolutions such as these were vetoed bu the United States, but this time it was not and Secretary of State John Kerry made a major speech urging the Israels not to keep building settlements which in his view inflamed the Palestinians and made the prospects for a peace less likely. The Israelis argued that the particualar areas--Jerusalem, Judea and Summaria were consecrated by God for the Jewish people who have inhabited the area for over 3000 years, and while they do not insist on sovreignty over the Judea and Summaria, from which Jews had been ethnically cleased, they do demand that the Jewish People who want to should be allowed to fulfill God's mandate and settle in their traditional territories. The traditional view of the United States on the settlement issue is that what God had done thousands of years cannot be allowed to override the obligagtion of israel and teh Palestinians to negotate the status of the territories that became an obligation when the Oslo Accords were signed in the recent past. Trump was very sympathetic to the Israeli position and was one of the many Americans who ha little or no respect for the United Nations.

Ehud Olmert

For thousands of years, we Jews have been nourished and sustained by a yearning for our historic land …. I believed and to this day still believe in our people's eternal and historic right to this entire land.

Olmert was speaking for a significant minority of Israelis who believe that God consecrated the land of Palestine to the Jewish People and all other peoples who controlled it did so by conquest. So their logic is for those who do not believe in the Bible and give no modern credence to God’s will, the Jews have no taken back the land by conquest which is the way the Palestinians and all of the many peoples had controlled that land. For believers, the Jews have the highest right; for non-believers, their right of conquest is no weaker than any of the others.

H. G. Wells

...the Idumeans (Edomites) were...made Jews...and a Turkish people (Khazars) were mainly Jews in South Russia...The main part of Jewry never was in Judea and had never come out of Judea.

Josephus

Now Caius Caesar [Caligula] did so grossly abuse the fortune he had arrived at, as to take himself to be a god, and to desire to be so called also, and to cut off those of the greatest nobility out of his country. He also extended his impiety as far as the Jews. Accordingly he sent Petronius with an army to Jerusalem to place his statues in the temple, and commanded him that, in case the Jews would not admit of them, he should slay those that opposed it, and carry all the rest into captivity.

Ariel Sharon

We do not build new Jewish communities in Samaria, Judea and Gaza. The United States has never accepted our building of communities or of the fence. Yet, I've managed to develop relations between Israel and the United States even though President Bush never supported settlements.

Sennacherib

As to Hezekiah [King of Judea], the Jew, he did not submit to my yoke, I laid siege to his strong cities, walled forts, and countless small villages, and conquered them

Ari Shavit

The Right said, "If we only annex the West Bank, we'll be safe and sound." The Left said, "If we only hand over the West Bank, we'll have peace". The Right said, "Our dead died because of the Left's delusions", while the Left said, "Our dead died because of the Right's fantasies." Rather than face a tragic reality imposed on us from without, we chose to create a simplistic narrative of Right against Left.

John Adams

Farther I could find it in my heart to wish that you had been at the head of a hundred thousand Israelites . . . & marching with them into Judea & making a conquest of that country & restoring your nation to the dominion of it. For I really wish the Jews again in Judea an independent nation.

Josephus

The Romans, though it was a terrible struggle to collect the timber, raised their platforms in twenty-one days, having as described before stripped the whole area in a circle round the town to a distance of ten miles. The countryside like the City was a pitiful sight; for where once there had been a lovely vista of woods and parks there was nothing but desert and stumps of trees. No one - not even a foreigner - who had seen the Old Judea and the glorious suburbs of the City, and now set eyes on her present desolation, could have helped sighing and groaning at so terrible a change; for every trace of beauty had been blotted out by war, and nobody who had known it in the past and came upon it suddenly would have recognized the place: when he was already there he would still have been looking for the City.

Judea Quotes