Let’s say you have a house with a moderately sized yard, and maybe you’ve planted a big garden there. Your friends know it as “Quiddidy’s Place.” Your family’s lived there and passed it down for almost 2000 years, you’ve worked the land, and basically it’s yours, through and through.
Then, the neighborhood starts to change. Some of your neighbors have sold out to folks from another neighborhood. Their old neighborhood was really bad, there was a lot of gang violence maybe, but your perfectly fine little street is changing. You could deal with it, though, until one day some of the new, incoming neighbors waltz into your yard and set up tents all over the place. They’ve scared your pets and trampled your garden. Maybe they’ve even shot your son and daughter. Then, they start building homes, right there in your yard! And some of them take over your house, saying, “Okay, maybe you can live in this walk-in closet, but we’re going to lock the door on it so you can’t step out into our house, got it?”
I bet you’d be mad! I bet you’d want to lob some rocks out that closet door and try to hit some of the jerks who ruined your garden, are setting up their homes on your land, who are taking over your freakin’ house and who roughed up your kids and wife. “Hey!” you shout! “Get outta here! This is Quiddidy’s place!”
“No, you’re just making a political statement,” they say. “This isn’t at all Quiddidy’s place. It’s Israel!”