Stavros
02-27-2026, 07:08 PM
The long interview Tucker Carlson had with Mike Huckabee has generated a lot of comment online, most of it as worthless as most of the interview, but it does reflect the claim that in the last two years the average American support for Israel has declined as its sympathy for the Palestinians has increased.
I have little interest in that.
I am also not that interested in the lengths to which Huckabee goes to defend the State of Israel, and as for the 'let them take it all' response by Huckabee when Carlson asks him if the bible says God gave Abram the land from the Nile to the Euphrates, that is also not new.
I first heard of Ben-Gurion's 'Big Thing' in the 1970s when Israel was in occupation of Southern Lebanon, and it dates from a letter or document Ben-Gurion wrote around 1918 but in any case refers to how one defines the state of Israel, where it is, its borders and so on. When Belazel Smotrich last year said 'we won't stop until we reach Damascus' he meant it, though Likud has never really defined what it calls 'Erez israel'.
What strikes me is this: the literal interpretation of the Biblical verses that justify an exclusively Jewish ownership of the land.
First, this so-called God had no right to set aside one piece of land for the Jews, and it isn't even clear to me if the people at that time identified as Jews. There are thousands of Gods, and this particular God it is claimed made this promise 3800 years ago, why? Why then and not 5,000 years ago?
Second, and I think the key, is that much of the Bible, esp as translated into English, is not meant to be taken literally. There literally was no Adam and Eve, there might have been a major flood in the region, but it could just as easily be an allegory or a metaphor for some natural disaster the memory of which survived in folklore, and that guy in the British Museum claims to have probably proof.
So I suggest that the meaning of these verses actually intends to advise Abram and descendants to settle down and farm the land, where before as is also the case with Jacob, they were nomadic herders or hunter gatherers, and this would follow the Neolithic Revolution which made the growing of crops a viable means of sustaining life. Anyone with a half decent knowledge of the Middle East knows there has been a tension between 'the desert and the sown' for thousands of years, sometimes actual, sometimes cultural. indeed, there has been a similar tension in North America (and Australia) and is often at the core of the conflicts between the Pioneer Settlers claiming land from nomadic herders who don't see any reason to become sedentary.
Neither Carlson nor Huckabee can even imagine this debate, even though it is fundamental, for example in the story of Cain and Abel, the farmer vs the herder.
It is a long interview and if you can endure it, the whole of it is here.
Tucker Confronts Mike Huckabee on America’s Toxic Relationship With Israel - YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XS7itdfgNnU)
I have little interest in that.
I am also not that interested in the lengths to which Huckabee goes to defend the State of Israel, and as for the 'let them take it all' response by Huckabee when Carlson asks him if the bible says God gave Abram the land from the Nile to the Euphrates, that is also not new.
I first heard of Ben-Gurion's 'Big Thing' in the 1970s when Israel was in occupation of Southern Lebanon, and it dates from a letter or document Ben-Gurion wrote around 1918 but in any case refers to how one defines the state of Israel, where it is, its borders and so on. When Belazel Smotrich last year said 'we won't stop until we reach Damascus' he meant it, though Likud has never really defined what it calls 'Erez israel'.
What strikes me is this: the literal interpretation of the Biblical verses that justify an exclusively Jewish ownership of the land.
First, this so-called God had no right to set aside one piece of land for the Jews, and it isn't even clear to me if the people at that time identified as Jews. There are thousands of Gods, and this particular God it is claimed made this promise 3800 years ago, why? Why then and not 5,000 years ago?
Second, and I think the key, is that much of the Bible, esp as translated into English, is not meant to be taken literally. There literally was no Adam and Eve, there might have been a major flood in the region, but it could just as easily be an allegory or a metaphor for some natural disaster the memory of which survived in folklore, and that guy in the British Museum claims to have probably proof.
So I suggest that the meaning of these verses actually intends to advise Abram and descendants to settle down and farm the land, where before as is also the case with Jacob, they were nomadic herders or hunter gatherers, and this would follow the Neolithic Revolution which made the growing of crops a viable means of sustaining life. Anyone with a half decent knowledge of the Middle East knows there has been a tension between 'the desert and the sown' for thousands of years, sometimes actual, sometimes cultural. indeed, there has been a similar tension in North America (and Australia) and is often at the core of the conflicts between the Pioneer Settlers claiming land from nomadic herders who don't see any reason to become sedentary.
Neither Carlson nor Huckabee can even imagine this debate, even though it is fundamental, for example in the story of Cain and Abel, the farmer vs the herder.
It is a long interview and if you can endure it, the whole of it is here.
Tucker Confronts Mike Huckabee on America’s Toxic Relationship With Israel - YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XS7itdfgNnU)