(By "friends" I here mean any kind of ally in religious terms.)
Taking into account history, should Jews and Christians be friends? Or Jews and muslims? Or Muslims and Christians?
Which one would make a most likely friendship?
Muslims got along well with Jews for centuries. Christians have persecuted Jews to say the least. The Qur'an describes Christians as being nearer to Muslims than Jews.
Jews and Christians at least recognize each other's religion. Nowadays both Christians and Jews see Islam as a kind of enemy. At the same time some Jews consider Muslims allies against the west (Christians?) and some Muslims also actually hold Jews in higher esteem in certain aspects compared to Christians.
Jews and Christians should
not be friends with Muslims.
A glimpse of any Muslim map of how Palestine should be, reveals that they would prefer Israel didn't exist, and that Jews give away their entire country. There is no negotiation, no "friendship" with that kind of mindset. Only borders work.
As for Jews and Christians, a strained friendship is possible. The Christians should support a state of Israel, and defend it from harm. However, it is my opinion that several have turned their back on what it actually means to be Jewish, and either have become Christian, or rejected Christ to the point where they instead accept Islam (their actual enemy). Or atheism (also an enemy, as it reflects the powers of the world's governments).
The problem here is a false dichotomy. When we read the Bible as a history, we see that the early fathers such as Noah and Abram, had a very personal relationship with God. The Phariseees, however, in an effort to preserve the fundamentals of Judaism following several attempts to occupy and subvert Israel, became instead fixated not on this relationship with God but rather in the
netilat yadayim ,
kashrut, and observance of Sabbath. In other words, God became secondary to the following of the Law.
Jews create this false dichotomy
:
1. Either we accept fully the person of Jesus as the Messiah
2. Or we reject him (even that he existed in some cases) and instead try to become more like Muslims and the secular people.
See, there is a third option:
3a. Maybe you see Jesus as a minor prophet who tried to get Jews away from senseless legalism,
3b. Or as not so much a real person as a metaphor for a call to be more like Moses with his personal encounters with God.
3c. Or Jesus was not the Messiah and the real Messiah is coming, but we must not discount what Jesus said because God was speaking through him.
All of these three seem quite different, but the result is the same. Jews remain Jewish, but understand that there is something lost here by seeing Christianity as antithetical to it.
The point is there are people who are not what they appear to be.
