It is not the purpose here to discuss which religion is right. However, if you are a Christian and accept the Bible, you cannot ignore what the Bible says about Israel and who it now belongs to.

The Promise to Abraham
In the Bible, God tells us who the land of Israel belongs to in the words of a promise made to Abraham the father of the Jewish race. He repeated it several times. We read in the book of Genesis that Abraham was told by God to leave his homeland. He obeyed this instruction and eventually came to live in the land of Canaan (now Israel ) and God made a very long term promise to him.

‘And Abram passed through the land unto the place of Sichem, unto the plain of Moreh. And the Canaanite was then in the land. And the LORD appeared unto Abram, and said, Unto thy seed will I give this land: and there builded he an altar unto the LORD, who appeared unto him’
[Genesis 12.6,7].

So God gave Abram or Abraham as he was later called, a promise of the land. Now, the Moslem might reply ‘Yes, but we too are descended from Abraham.’ Of course that is true but read on:

‘And Abraham said unto God, O that Ishmael might live before thee! And God said, Sarah thy wife shall bear thee a son indeed; and thou shalt call his name Isaac: and I will establish my covenant with him for an everlasting covenant, and with his seed after him. And as for Ishmael, I have heard thee: Behold, I have blessed him…But my covenant will I establish with Isaac...'
[Genesis 17:18-21]

Ishmael was the other son of Abraham, the son from whom the Arabs are descended. So God has promised something to the Arabs but the land of Israel He gave to Isaac and his descendants. It was an everlasting promise, although there were certain temporary gaps occasioned by the wrongs of the nation. At such times the majority of Jews left the land as captives. There were however, small numbers of Jews in the land throughout history. God always said he would bring Israel back whenever she left the land. That is the basis of the Jewish claim to the area we know as Israel .

The Promise repeated
God repeated that promise many times. Genesis chapter 28 shows how the grandson of Abraham, whose name was Jacob, was given the same promise. This man is the undisputed founder of the Jewish people, the father of the twelve tribes of Israel.

Jacob was on a journey and he received a vision from God at a place he afterwards called Bethel (meaning ‘the house of God’):

‘And he dreamed, and behold a ladder set up on the earth…And, behold, the LORD stood above it, and said, I am the LORD God of Abraham thy father, and the God of Isaac: the land whereon thou liest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed; and thy seed shall be as the dust of the earth, and thou shalt spread abroad to the west, and to the east, and to the north, and to the south: and in thee and in thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed’
[Genesis 28.12-14].

The same message was repeated over and over again. Moses repeated it and it was also the subject of a promise to David which he referred to in one of the Psalms.

‘He hath remembered his covenant for ever…Which covenant he made with Abraham, and his oath unto Isaac; and confirmed the same unto Jacob for a law, and to Israel for an everlasting covenant: saying, Unto thee will I give the land of Canaan , the lot of your inheritance’
[Psalm 105.8-11].

The message of Israel's prophets
The Old Testament prophets spoke of this same promise, a promise that would not be affected by the suffering of the Jews. They also predicted how it would be achieved. Take for example the prophet Ezekiel who tells us about the return of the Jews to their land, 2,500 years in advance:

‘And say unto them, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I will take the children of Israel from among the heathen, whither they be gone, and will gather them on every side, and bring them into their own land: And I will make them one nation in the land upon the mountains of Israel; and one king shall be king to them all: and they shall be no more two nations, neither shall they be divided into two kingdoms any more at all.’
[Ezekiel 37.21,22]

You could not wish for a clearer statement about whose land it really is. It is apparent that what we have witnessed over the last century goes a long way to fulfilling this prophecy. The prophet also describes how God will defend this land. We have already witnessed the unseen hand of God and will see Him working more openly when the nation's existence is challenged - we can see that challenge building up now.

More information
The current situation in the Middle East
Anti-Semitism
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