Quote:
Originally Posted by flylock shox
The same point I made in my initial post in this thread.
Religious extremism exists on both sides. Israel is not, and cannot be, a secular state. It is not a Western-style democracy. It is a Jewish state created to be a homeland for the Jewish people. Unfortunately for Israel (and very fortunately for the world's Jewish population) it's not the only place for Jews to live, and it's not the place that provides Jews with the best opportunities to live successful, peaceful, happy lives. This is why so many Israelis have chosen to leave Israel for America, and those that have left have tended to be the most moderate Israelis. Immigration the other way consists largely of highly religious Jews, which makes sense, because what other reason would, say, a Jewish American have for leaving the US and going to Israel?
The result, of course, is an increasingly religious state surrounded by extremely religious (and extremely hostile) states. Because of the influence of religious extremism, the actions and responses of both sides are less likely to be reasonable than one might expect of secular states. Unless, of course, one adopts the position that basing one's beliefs and actions largely on religious imperatives is "reasonable."
Otherwise, religion is going to continue to play what I think is a destructive role on both sides.
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I am glad you are the judge of if Israel is more beneficial to a jew than another country. Glad it is you making that decision. Israel is not an increasingly religious state. There are many political parties representing many different ideas. Most of the governments spend much of their time figuring out ways to stay alive in the region.
The Jewish religion has little in the way of the current situation, which is a predominantly Jewish state (could have been any religion) plunked in the middle of the region. Had, IMO, the surrounding nations not been infiltrated my Muslim extremists, I would think the issue would have been resolved. Instead there has been to much war and too much terrorism. There are many ideas we can talk about to bring about peace, but the number one issue is to eliminate the current version of Hamas, Hezbollah and whatever you want to call Iran.