My first question would be, "*Does* history really repeat itself?" I know it's a common statement. "He who does not learn from history is doomed
to repeat it", that sort of thing. But... I haven't seen it, really.
In a sense, history is based mostly on wars and technological innovations, which often overlap (e.g., the use of aircraft in warfare, the atomic bomb,
etc.). Most of the wars are based on money. Don't confuse the excuse for war with the actual reasons for a war. The excuse will always be
noble-sounding: God wants us to do this, we must fight the Godless heathens, we must bring Democracy to these people, we must save them from a tyrant,
they have WMD, whatever. Always sounds noble and righteous. But the truth is, it's based on money, greed.
So maybe history repeats itself because wars are based on greed. Each new war is just another grab for money, gold, petroleum, arable land, or other
resources. But things are always different for each war.
As for the supposed difference between the Israelites (note the spelling) and the Jews, there is none. Queen Elizabeth cannot trace her ancestry back
to the pharaohs (note the spelling). Go back about a thousand years, and things get terribly muddled. Very few people can hope to trace anything
back that far, much less farther.
Even some of the pharaohs themselves came from non-pharaoh stock. Plain old humans, who managed to kill and connive their way into power.

