Does the Israel-Gaza War amount to a 'Human Blood Sacrifice' Ritual? | Jiang Xueqin

What is a Blood Sacrifice?
Animal sacrifice is the ritual killing and offering of an animal usually as part of a religious ritual or to appease or maintain favour with a deity. Animal sacrifices were common throughout Europe and the Ancient Near East until Late Antiquity, and continue in some cultures or religions today. Human sacrifice, where it existed, was always much more rare. All or only part of a sacrificial animal may be offered; some cultures, like the ancient and modern Greeks, eat most of the edible parts of the sacrifice in a feast, and burnt the rest as an offering. Others, including the ancient Hebrews, burnt the whole animal offering, called a holocaust. Animal sacrifice should generally be distinguished from the religiously-prescribed methods of ritual slaughter of animals for normal consumption as food.

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Who is Jiang Xueqin?
Jiang Xueqin (born 1976) is a Chinese-Canadian educator, writer, historian, and geopolitical theorist based in Beijing, China. He is known for his contributions to education reform in China. In particular promoting creativity, critical thinking, and global citizenship, as well as for his YouTube channel Predictive History, where he applies structural historical analysis, game theory, and concepts inspired by Isaac Asimov's fictional psychohistory to interpret and forecast major geopolitical developments.

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Where is Palestine?
Palestine is a geographic region in Western Asia. It is usually considered to include the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, Israel, and in some definitions, some parts of western Jordan. The name was used by ancient Greek writers, and it was later used for the Roman province Syria Palaestina, the Byzantine Palaestina Prima, and the Islamic provincial district of Jund Filastin. The region comprises most of the territory claimed for the biblical regions known as the Land of Israel, the Holy Land or Promised Land. Historically, it has been known as the southern portion of wider regional designations such as Canaan, Syria, ash-Sham, and the Levant. Situated at a strategic location between Egypt, Syria and Arabia, and the birthplace of Judaism and Christianity, the region has a long and tumultuous history as a crossroads for religion, culture, commerce, and politics.

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What is Sacrifice?
Sacrifice is the offering of food, objects or the lives of animals to a higher purpose, in particular divine beings, as an act of propitiation or worship. While sacrifice often implies the ritual killing of an animal, the term offering can be used for bloodless sacrifices of food or artifacts.

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Where is Israel?
Israel, officially the State of Israel, is a country in the Middle East. Located on the southeastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea and the northern shore of the Red Sea. It has land borders with Lebanon to the north, Syria to the northeast, Jordan on the east, the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and Gaza Strip to the east and west, respectively, and Egypt to the southwest.

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