The Jewish people believe that they have a divine right to occupy the land of Israel.
In this regard, they give three verses from the Bible. The first verse is Genesis 15.18:
Here God gave the land between the River of Mitsrayim and River Perath to the biological descendants of Abraham. Then, in Genesis 17.3, God changed the name of Abraham from his original name “Abram” to “Abraham.”
The introduction of “h” indicates that his writ has now been expanded to encompass all peoples. Until now he led only his biological descendants. Now he has become the leader of all people.
After his expansion, in Genesis 17.8, God said to Abraham: “I will give the land of Canaan to you and your descendants.” The word for “you” in this verse is “Zera” (Strong’s Concordance No 02233). This word, in the main, means “seed, sowing, offspring, semen virile, descendants, posterity, and children.” However, it also means “of moral quality” and “a practitioner of righteousness (figuratively).” In the present context when the writ of Abraham has been expanded, we suggest the word “zera” must here be interpreted to indicate all the moral people, that is, those who believed in One God. Thus, the Land of Canaan is given to all the moral people, and not to the biological descendants of Abraham.
After having given the Land of Canaan to all the moral people, now God blesses Sarah in Genesis 17:16 to beget a son and through him to become “mother of nations.” However, God gave no land to the descendants of Sarah. If we read Genesis 17:4 and 17:18 together, it seems to say that God gave the Land of Canaan to the moral people and a son to Sarah. God did not give the Land of Canaan to the biological descendants of Sarah.
After having blessed Sarah to beget a son, God said to Abraham: “I will multiply your descendants as the stars of the heaven and as the sand which is on the seashore, and your descendants shall possess the gate of their enemies” (Genesis 22:17). The same word “zera” is used here for “you.” As discussed above, it could mean either the biological descendants or the followers. Even if we assume that here it refers to the biological descendants, the blessing is only of winning over the enemies. There is no giving of Land to them in this verse.
We can now consider all the above verses together. God first gave the Land between the River and the Desert to the biological descendants of Abraham. Then God expanded the writ of Abraham. He became the leader of all moral people. Subsequently, God gave the Land of Canaan to all the moral people. We read this to mean that the earlier giving of land to the biological descendants has been outgrown. Thereafter, God blessed Sarah to beget a son and blessed the biological descendants to win over the enemies, but gave them no land.
The second verse that is quoted in this connection is from the Exodus.
In Exodus 23.24, God said to the people of Moses, you must not bow down to the Gods of the Land where I am taking you. You must completely overthrow them and smash their standing stones to pieces.
Here there is the clear direction that you will smash idols of the people of Canaan who do not believe in One God.
Then in Exodus 23.31, God gave them the land between the Red Sea and the Sea of Philistine and from the Desert to the River.
Subsequently, in Exodus 23.32, God said: You must make no covenant with them or with their Gods.
These three verses read together indicate that God first tells the people of Moses to not worship any other God and smash the idols. Having said that, God gives them the Land. Then God again reminds them that they will not worship any other God. So the primary focus of these verses is the denial of worship of idols. As long as a person believes in One God and does not do idol worship, he becomes entitled to the land to which God is taking the people of Moses. As per my reading, the Land is not given to the Jews or any other particular people but to all believers in One God.
The third verse in this context is Ezekiel 37.21. Here the context is that the Jews had conquered Jerusalem. After a few centuries, they were thrown out and many were sent to Babylon. Subsequently, after about 100 years they came back and settled in Jerusalem again.
At this point, God proclaimed through Saint Ezekiel: I am going to take the Jews from among the nations they have gone to, and gather them from every quarter and bring them to their land.
This means God said that he would bring them back to Jerusalem. This does not in any way establish that God has given the Land of Jerusalem to the Jews.
I accept these interpretations are not accepted by mainstream scholars. But the question is this: If there is only One God and there is only one humanity how and why would God differentiate based on birth alone? How can God discriminate between two moral persons—one descendant and the other not? Therefore, if two interpretations are possible, then in the first case we should interpret them in the manner that they encompass all humanity which is the child of God.