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Nage Waza · 01-09-2009, 05:54 PM

I just have two points for all of us to ponder:

Regarding the interest this subject raises, the only reason I entered the fray was because of Hamas. One of my buddies, and a close second in line to being the best man at my wedding is Lebanese. We can argue heatedly all day about the middle east, but he has watched what radical Islam has done. The issues we are seeing today are not exactly the same issues we used to argue about. In other words, in no way shape or form does he support anything about Hamas, because he knows them to be a terrorist group. Any support they have is from them running elections by gunpoint, killing opposition and continuing the control of what kids learn and hateful propaganda. Hamas is also forcing radical Islam in a region that was once very tolerant. I suggest anyone here debating to try hard to separate what is happening in the region currently (missiles etc.) to the long standing issue of the Palestinians. There are three groups now, Israel, the Palestinians and Hamas. Think of it this way, Israel was recently fighting with Hezbollah based out of Lebanon, yet Israel is at peace with Lebanon and has predominantly good relations. Lebanon on the other hand is in the midst of some type of civil war between tolerant Lebanon and radical Hezbollah/Syria/Iran. Hezbollah's goal it seemed was to get the rest of the country (Lebanon) to join them in hating Israel and somehow to get people to become more like the population in Gaza - Radical.

People keep bringing up the separation between religion and state, but they are looking at it as the religion running the state. The issue of separation of the two is to prevent the government from running religion, not usually the other way around (for typical democracies). I wanted to clear that up, as some people seem to think it is usually in reverse.

Here is a pretty good article regarding the Gaza strip, something that appears to be what many of us were trying to say, but did not say as well as this author:

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinio...konline03.html

01-09-2009, 05:54 PM	#248
Nage Waza Offered up a bag of cans for a custom user title Join Date: Oct 2008 Location: Westside Exp:	I just have two points for all of us to ponder: Regarding the interest this subject raises, the only reason I entered the fray was because of Hamas. One of my buddies, and a close second in line to being the best man at my wedding is Lebanese. We can argue heatedly all day about the middle east, but he has watched what radical Islam has done. The issues we are seeing today are not exactly the same issues we used to argue about. In other words, in no way shape or form does he support anything about Hamas, because he knows them to be a terrorist group. Any support they have is from them running elections by gunpoint, killing opposition and continuing the control of what kids learn and hateful propaganda. Hamas is also forcing radical Islam in a region that was once very tolerant. I suggest anyone here debating to try hard to separate what is happening in the region currently (missiles etc.) to the long standing issue of the Palestinians. There are three groups now, Israel, the Palestinians and Hamas. Think of it this way, Israel was recently fighting with Hezbollah based out of Lebanon, yet Israel is at peace with Lebanon and has predominantly good relations. Lebanon on the other hand is in the midst of some type of civil war between tolerant Lebanon and radical Hezbollah/Syria/Iran. Hezbollah's goal it seemed was to get the rest of the country (Lebanon) to join them in hating Israel and somehow to get people to become more like the population in Gaza - Radical. People keep bringing up the separation between religion and state, but they are looking at it as the religion running the state. The issue of separation of the two is to prevent the government from running religion, not usually the other way around (for typical democracies). I wanted to clear that up, as some people seem to think it is usually in reverse. Here is a pretty good article regarding the Gaza strip, something that appears to be what many of us were trying to say, but did not say as well as this author: http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinio...konline03.html