Salaam Muhannad.

Thank you very much for your question.

The terms Jews, Israelis and Zionists are not the same in meaning, though people often use them loosely for the same group of people. The word Jew is the English word for the Arabic yahud. The word is derived from the patriarch Judah (Yahudah). It originally meant one who belonged to the tribe of Judah, as distinguished from the descendants of the twelve tribes, called the Israelites.

The term is now used mostly to refer to the followers of the religion of Judaism. Also in an ethnic sense, it can include those who have rejected the religious faith of Judaism, but still identify themselves as Jews in a national or cultural sense.

According to the Bible, the Israelites were the descendants of the children of Jacob who was later known as Israel. This name, according to Jewish and Christian scholars, refers to an event described in Genesis, Chapter 32, verses 25 through 31, in which the Prophet Jacob (peace be upon him) “wrestles with God and overpowers Him.”

While Muslims naturally reject this story as apocraphal, Allah (SWT) in the Qur’an refers to the descendants of Jacob as “the Children of Israel.” This may be because of the fact that the common name of the Children of Jacob later came to be the Children of Israel. Furthermore, the name does not mean here “one who overpowered God,” but rather “one who was overpowered by God.” And Allah knows best.

Jacob had twelve male children and their descendants came to be known as the twelve tribes of Israel. Today's Jews are mostly descended from the Israelites of Judah, and thus are sometimes popularly identified as Israelites themselves.

The Jews claim that being the children of Abraham (peace be upon him), they deserve the land of Palestine promised to Abraham by Jehovah. The relevant scriptural verse, found in Genesis 17, verses 8 and 9, says:

“And I will give unto thee, and to thy seed after thee, the land wherein thou art a stranger, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession; and I will be their God. And God said unto Abraham, Thou shalt keep my covenant therefore, thou, and thy seed after thee in their generations.”

Abraham had two sons: the firstborn was Ishmael, the second, Isaac. The Arabs are the children of Ishmael and the Jews the children of Isaac. The Jewish claim is that only the children of Isaac are the legitimate children of Abraham meant by the term, “thy seed.” They say that Ishmael was the son of a slave woman and therefore does not deserve God’s gift of the land of Canaan.

But in the book of Deuteronomy, the sixth book of the Bible, we read in chapter 21, verses 15 through 17:

“If a man has two wives, one beloved, and another hated, and they have borne him children, both the beloved and the hated; and if the firstborn son be hers that was hated: then it shall be, when he maketh his sons to inherit that which he hath, that he may not make the son of the beloved firstborn before the son of the hated, which is indeed the firstborn: but he shall acknowledge the son of the hated for the firstborn, by giving him a double portion of all that he hath: for he is the beginning of his strength; the right of the firstborn is his.”

It is obvious here that the status of the mother of the firstborn does not in any way disqualify him from inheriting his rights from his father. But the Jews, as well as some sects of Christians, sideline this simple rule of the Torah, in order to deny the Palestinians the right to the land which God gave to them as well as to their brethren, the Children of Isaac.

In the course of the past two thousand years, the Children of Israel, owing to their own neglect of their covenant with God, suffered numerous setbacks and defeats at the hands of their enemies. They were thereby scattered over different parts of the world. But their belief in the Promised Land remained with them, and they yearned to return to it. This was the real fount of the Zionist movement which began in 1882, with the intention of recovering what they thought to be the land exclusively promised to the Jews by God.

To some Zionists, it is a religious duty to annex and occupy all of the Promised Land (the borders of which God alone knows), no matter who owns it now, or how many people they massacre. They believe that in this effort Jehovah is with them, and for that reason, they do not care for world criticisms or UN resolutions.

We cannot say that all the Zionists are religiously motivated. There used to be, and there are even now, many Zionists who do not believe in God or the Torah, but would still not spare a Palestinian child in the Promised Land if they could.

It is really interesting to see that the Americans and the Europeans, who support the claims of Israel based on their racism, call themselves the apostles of human rights, freedom and secularism! They have no qualms at all in sending their financial and military aid to deny the Palestinians their birthright to their homeland.

Meanwhile, we must not forget the thousands of sincere Jews who believe in the right of the Palestinians to their home land and dream of a peace whereby both of the groups can coexist in harmony. This demographic highlights the difference between the terms Jew and Zionist.

May Allah bless us all to understand the truth and live peacefully here on earth, forfeiting all of our narrow-minded schisms and blind adherence to concerns opposed to His Way!

Thank you again and please stay in touch.

Useful Links:

Jihad and Zionism

Differences Between Islam and Judaism