Don't believe me? Just see the current Israeli/Palestinian conflict. Who would ever think that these two groups are descended from the SAME FATHER??? If ever there was a need for Fertility drugs or In Vitro fertilization, it was during the time when Sarah, wife of Abraham, was trying to bring forth a child. Impatience caused Sarah to give Hagar to Abraham to bring forth a son, and she did...after which the pressure on Sarah was off and lo and behold she got pregnant.
In all this blood and guts...bombs and rockets, what gets lost is the fact that Israelis and Palestinians are descended from the same father, Abraham. Instead of calling it the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, it should be called the Sarah/Hagar conflict, for Abraham was both of their "baby daddy".
Surrogate motherhood. The Arab-Israeli conflict. The oppression of the underclass. Sounds like a roundup of headlines from the nightly news—if the media were in full swing back in biblical days. All of these timely issues can be found in the twist-and-turn-filled story of Sarah and her Egyptian handmaiden, Hagar. According to the biblical account, both women bear a son for the patriarch Abraham. From that starting point, scholars have gone on to explore varying (and sometimes contradictory) layers of meaning in this classic tale of family rivalry.
Where is Maury Povich when you need him, because this story is worthy of his "you are the father" line. Both sides are deeply religious, and both sides are well aware of the history of how they came to be. It is truly the typical family feud, minus Richard Dawson.
The story of Sarah and Hagar begins in Genesis 11. Sarah, then called Sarai, and Abraham, called Abram, marry and wander the Near and Middle East. A famine sends them to Egypt. To protect himself from rivals who covet his wife, Abram asks Sarai to say she is his sister. An admiring Pharaoh thereupon takes her home and thanks Abram with a generous gift of livestock and slaves. But God afflicts Pharaoh with "great plagues," foreshadowing the story of Exodus. Pharaoh reconsiders and hands Sarai back.
Abram and Sarai end up in the city of Hebron, where he complains to God, who had promised him offspring, that he is still childless. Sarai offers him her slave woman, Hagar, and says: "It may be that I may obtain children from her." But after Hagar conceives, she looks upon Sarai contemptuously—or so her mistress believes. In return, Sarai treats the pregnant Hagar harshly, and she flees into the desert. An angel orders her back, telling her that her "wild" son is to be named Ishmael, meaning "God hears."
When Abram is 99, God comes to him and affirms his famous covenant, renaming him Abraham and promising that he will be "the ancestor of a multitude of nations." He decrees that Abraham and all his male descendants must be circumcised—and promises a child to the 90-year-old Sarai, now renamed Sarah. Both husband and wife laugh at the news.
In Genesis 21, God's promise to Abraham is finally fulfilled, as Sarah gives birth to Isaac. But she frets over whether Ishmael will also be Abraham's heir. God tells Abraham to do as Sarah wishes, so he sends Hagar and Ishmael into the desert with only meager food and water. As Hagar begins to despair, God speaks to her, promising that Ishmael will become "a great nation" and showing her a well that saves both their lives.
Needless to say, Issac becomes the father of the 12 tribes of Israel, and Ismael becomes the father of 12 tribes of Ismaelites, (Arabs). This whole fight is about who is the "chosen" son of Abraham. So much so that people, innocent people, are dying daily on both sides because this sibling rivalry thing has gotten blown out of proportion. It's sickening, really. Both sides bring guilt and responsibility to the table, and BOTH sides have the ability to stop this madness and compromise. NEITHER side is really willing to do so. There are extremists on both sides, terrorists on both sides, death on both sides...