A fairy story to you, but 'the truth' to millions of people around the world - and a growing number of Americans who truly believe the literal Word of God in Biblical text.
I think a case can be made for every war being about land, power and wealth, with most of them using religion as a pretext for starting one. The Romans used religion as an excuse to attack Carthage; the Franks and Burgundians began the first European Crusade against the Visigoths using religion as an excuse to expand their empire. The English Civil War found religious differences at the heart of their division over the Divine Right of Kings. T'was ever thus.
The God of Israel is a jealous God, and will tolerate no rival for the throne of Heaven, as Baal (Beelzebub) and the Canaanites found to their cost. Power sharing has never worked throughout history, and we can see this dynamic playing out in the Middle East today as Israel seeks to expand throughout the region using religious rhetoric as a convenient explanation for why they need to expel Palestinians from their land and deny them the right to their own homeland.
That's one of the reasons why it matters to understand the motives behind the religious narrative behind the plausible excuses used to justify the attacks on Iran, as Americans struggle to understand why it matters. Trump claims 'America first' and Israel says it's making the attacks in 'self-defence' but nobody has actually shown Iran really has the capability to make an atomic device of any kind - neither have they explained why Iran must comply with these regulations while Israel is allowed to ignore them.
The discussions underlying this confusion are skimmed over in the article as they highlight the schism between Evangelical Christians who profoundly believe in the Rapture while others question why Judaism should matter at all to their cause. Both sides of this divide have sperate reasons for promoting this modern crusade while the divergence on key elements of Scripture force them to come to terms with the ever present dichotomy of thought between Christianity and Judaism, which will never be compatible in the long term.
