Obi, if you want me to respond, you can't take up an hour of my day reading your single post.

If you don't want me to respond, great job.

"And...yes...they were the opposing forces in that war...who would you like me to blame? The Israelis were happy with a two-state solution, Egypt said they'd "push the Jews into the sea," and we had ourselves a war.
"

And this Whig history of the conflict amounts to you being "unbiased" and accepting blame where appropriate. No discussion of the fact that the Arabs were alloted 38% of Palestine but made up 65% of the population. No discussion of the explicit plan by the Israeli state (called Plan D, documented by Benny Morris who is no leftist) to ethnically cleanse Palestine from fertile land regardless of their hostility, an expansion which precipitated the invasion by Egypt and others in 1948.

Nope, it's all one side, as it always is with you. But you love to get on your sanctimonious soap box about having nuanced analysis and admitting error. A sad joke.

So it isn't Un-Constitutional for Israel to make religious laws. Isn't that enough for why they can be a Jewish State, and Judaistic (how do you say that?), and why America can't be specifically Christian.

"Every point of controversy with Israel is blamed on the Arabs regardless of what political form they take. This is your model of not being biased."

Again, *NOT* all Arabs...not even the majority--

I have now REPEATEDLY named the (modern) parties with whom I have a grievance in that region of the world.

"Because you uniquely give Israel wide latitude on this question as you even admitted, excusing it based on the threats they face."

Yes, I largely do--and I'd submit that even if I give them a good deal of latitude, at least some of that is, if not justifiable, at the very least understandable for one basic reason--

Whatever side of the conflict you're on (or even if you're neutral) it has to be admitted that the conflict in that region between several factions and powers IS unique. It isn't a one vs. one or even two vs. two setup...there's more history there than anywhere else, the combatants have an extremely complicated relationship, and Israel as a state has existed in essentially a constant state of war.

And when a nation exists that way for more than two, three generations...

YEAH, I'm going to to give it some latitude and say AT LEAST I can understand (if not always agree with) why they do what they do.

It's a unique circumstance, Putin. There isn't anywhere else on Earth like that war-torn region.

So while I AGAIN condemn Israel's human rights violations, I can at least view them in the greater context and say that they ARE in a unique position.

By contrast...

"When other countries who you love to bring up as being evil incarnate have much greater threats, such excuses do not wash with you. Israel is held to a much lower standard."

Russia's flaming wars in Syria and Ukraine? That's not a situation fueled by 2,000 years of violence and history, and not one fueled by 70 years of living in a state of perpetual war with tens of thousands of rockets fired into the mainland every year... that's a dictator with a complex.

The plight of the Israelis AND Palestinians AND Lebanese/Syrian/Jordanian/Egyptian people affected by these last 70 years IS unique.

Putin's aggression is not, and so he has no such excuse.

@bo_sox:

It matters because it's a deeply personal conflict over what is the single most fought over and history-soaked area of the world...and if you have skin in the game, and if your people (whether they're the Jews OR the Arab states or, hell, even the colonial powers) have had a stake in that game for hundreds if not thousands of years...it matters.

It matters because those people are YOUR people--
There are days I love being a Jew, days I hate it, days it doesn't matter, days it does--
But the Jews are my people, and they and Western Literature are likely all of "me" that will survive me.

So when MY people are attacked, it's an attack on me, because I could be one of them, and in a way I am them--not least in the eyes of the attackers claiming they'd like to kill all the Jews.

It MATTERS, and it matters to ME that Hamas and Hezbollah are brought to heel and crushed--and it matters to me that the Jews no longer have to live in fear of them, or anyone...12-20 million left in a planet of 7 billion, so when the home of the Jews, home to HALF that population, is consumed by war and people who bomb civilians and busses and children and ANYONE because any Jew dead is a victory to them...

It MATTERS that we win, that the Jews (and others, I have a Lebanese friend who was displaced by Hezbollah) live to see both those menaces gone and peace for the Jews and Lebanese and Palestinians and all others who want it.

Get rid of the Israeli Far Right encroaching on Palestinian land, get rid of Hamas and Hezbollah who would rather aim towards genocide and terrorism than peace.

Hold THEM responsible for what they've done, because when they do that to my people, or people like my Lebanese friend, those trials have to MATTER and count for something...and that means they have to be held responsible, and defeated.

Dictator with a complex? This is you trying to convince me you're not just regurgitating one-sided polemics on complicated issues and that you don't assign blame to one side?

Putin saved Syria from a Iraq-style war with the USA. He is the reason why Syria is now, slowly, creeping back to stability despite western attempts to destroy it by arming terrorists to blow people up and behead people. It is not Putin who is fanning the flames of war in either Syria or Ukraine, and the fact you say this reveals the total bankruptcy of your frequent lectures about me supposedly not having a nuanced view.

Ukraine is on the Russian border. A nationalist, Russian hating, fascist government in Ukraine allied to NATO is a massive threat to Russia. Even if you don't agree with Russia's every move, you can at least acknowledge the very serious threat of having a hostile country right on your doorstep is. You acknowledge it with Israel but not Russia.

Hypocrite, hypocrite, hypocrite.

"It's a unique circumstance, Putin. There isn't anywhere else on Earth like that war-torn region."

THere are plenty of places actually. If you bothered to look at the world outside of your narrow lens, you'd see that statement is completely absurd. Civil wars have been raging in the Sudan and Great Lakes region for decades, since basically independence. The horn of Africa has also been at war for decades. Not to mention Korea.

Your parochialism is showing.

Pretty sure the Great Lakes are actually OK... Unless you try to take our beer.... Or is Canada mad they didn't win a cup and going after the Yoopers?

@KingCyprus:

"So it isn't Un-Constitutional for Israel to make religious laws. Isn't that enough for why they can be a Jewish State, and Judaistic (how do you say that?), and why America can't be specifically Christian."

Judaic?

And again, to make a long story short, some things are subject to religious laws, and within that (I believe) some groups have their own variations (like with marriage, each religion governs that their own way) but with some exceptions (like the Sabbath and kosher food and burial) MOSTLY the state laws have to be/are supposed to be secular and apply to all citizens, unless it's something specific (ie, Jews getting preference in immigration via Right of Return.)

So yeah, all of that's allowed for, whereas there's no mention of anything Christian-specific in the US Constitution or other documents, and there's the article separating such impingement...

And then there's the Founders, which brings us back to Putin:

"Your comments about other founders are also gross exaggerations. The fact is that they were virtually all dissenters in the Protestant tradition (opposed to the Anglican church), but they were devout in their religious beliefs."

Yes...I said they were DEISTS...that would allow for religious beliefs, I didn't say they were atheistic. I simply said what you just confirmed--that they eschewed the Protestant tradition of Christianity.

They weren't Christians as we'd today recognize the term...they were their own breed of deists.

I would likewise argue that yes, they reference Christ, but often in the way Jefferson does--either as a historical figure OR in a metaphorical or rhetorical kind of way, the kind of way a poet would use God or Jove as a stand-in for a creator.

They were NOT and were not in line with the Protestantism of this country today...which WAS the original claim of this thread, that this country was not a Christian country.

If you want to call it a Deistic country, hooray--that doesn't make it Christian.'

A last thing I hear repeated I'll tackle--that we were Judeo-Christian "culturally"...

Yeah...so is, oh, just about all of the West...as much of it was influenced by Greco-Roman myth, law, literature and culture...

So, aside from that statement saying we're a Western nation founded on the four core cultural groups--Romans, Greeks, Jews and Christians--that influenced the founding of the West to a large degree...that doesn't say anything PARTICULAR about the US, it basically just says we're not Eastern.

Doesn't say we were founded with the Bible in one hand and a Cross in the other, so to speak.

"Pretty sure the Great Lakes are actually OK."

I don't know have you seen Detroit?

I'm not talking about mere civil wars or even decades-long conflicts, Putin...

I'm talking about conflicts that stretch back THOUSANDS of years, back to when the Romans expelled the Jews, and you could likely go back further than that.

That particular swath of the Middle East IS the single most contested place in world history, that DOES make it unique, and the nature of this conflict (wherein both sides were promised the land by the British and UN at various points, and so both sides have claims to the land on multiple fronts as well as thousands of years of inter-woven history, without even getting into the real nitty gritty of the situation) IS unique.

@Putin

Fair point. But... Detroit IS mostly on Lake Saint Clair....

" I didn't say they were atheistic. I simply said what you just confirmed--that they eschewed the Protestant tradition of Christianity."

No I did not say the eschewed the Protestant tradition, I said they were protestant dissenters (the more prominent ones, anyway) That's a specific line of thought in Christianity. Protestants who were outside the established churches (namely Anglican & Lutheran).

Of the 56 men who signed the Declaration of Independence, 28 were affiliated with the Anglican church; 11 were Congregationalists; 12 were Presbyterian; 2 were Quaker; 2 were Unitarian; and 1 was Catholic.

http://www.adherents.com/gov/Founding_Fathers_Religion.html#Declaration

"I'm talking about conflicts that stretch back THOUSANDS of years, back to when the Romans expelled the Jews, and you could likely go back further than that."

The conflict doesn't go back "thousands of years". It was existing perfectly fine as an Ottoman backwater department for several centuries before the present conflict. You can't invoke what happened 2,000 years ago to claim it's the most "contested piece of land on earth". If you could, then Belgium would win in a landslide anyway. How many major battles were fought there over the centuries? They make the Arab-Israel conflict look like a pinprick.

"If you could, then Belgium would win in a landslide anyway. How many major battles were fought there over the centuries? They make the Arab-Israel conflict look like a pinprick."

The Roman Occupation...
The Muslims taking it over...
The Crusades...
Both World Wars saw fighting there...
70 continuous years now...
It changed hands between some of those Islamic states before that...

Historically speaking, I'm willing to bet more have died in/for "the Holy Land" than...Belgium.

"You can't invoke what happened 2,000 years ago to claim it's the most "contested piece of land on earth"."

...But it's precisely BECAUSE of what happened 2,000-1,400 years ago that we have this fight today...the Jewish Diaspora and the spread of Christianity and the birth of Islam.

All three are deep roots in this conflict.

"It was existing perfectly fine as an Ottoman backwater department for several centuries before the present conflict."

So for all your bashing Israeli occupation, you're fine with a power occupying the territory that's not the Palestinians...as long as it's not Israel? Even if it's, as you say, a backwater, whereas modern Israel, despite all the setbacks with this perpetual war, is anything but a backwater?

"No I did not say the eschewed the Protestant tradition, I said they were protestant dissenters (the more prominent ones, anyway)"

What is your line of differentiation between dissenting from something and eschewing it?

If I eschew something, I avoid, abstain, or otherwise leave it behind...is that not dissent?

"Of the 56 men who signed the Declaration of Independence, 28 were affiliated with the Anglican church; 11 were Congregationalists; 12 were Presbyterian; 2 were Quaker; 2 were Unitarian; and 1 was Catholic."

Who, here, has ever heard of William Williams?
George Read?
Francis Lewis?
Lewis Morris?
Francis Hooper?
William Floyd?
Benjamin Rush?
James Wilson? (Well, OK, he was Dr. House's buddy, but I don't think that counts.)
Thomas McKean?

And I can keep going on and on, but point is--

While that's a fair point to point out the religious affiliation of some, I'd counter by saying there are founders and then there are Founders, with the capital F.

And while that's admittedly somewhat subjective and hairsplitting, I don't think it's unfair to say that, say, America's founding and framing owes more to the deist Jefferson than each and every person I just named above?

Jefferson and Franklin are both noted as deists there, and as the former wrote the damn thing and the latter was the man that persuaded France to enter into the war on our side, I think they're Founders with a capital F, and really "founded" this country in an ideological sense.

Paine obviously isn't on that list, but he also obviously was a big contributor...the argument's been made that without Paine's pamphlet, Washington's men would never have taken up their guns. There's another deist...

http://www.adherents.com/adh_presidents.html

Jefferson, Madison (there, NOT Wikipedia), Monroe and, to name someone not a Founder but certainly foundational to this country as we know it today, Lincoln--

ALL deists, or at least described as such in part.

Presidents 1-5 generally being the presidents of the Founders...

3 of that group are deists, and Washington's religious beliefs have a strain of that as well, even if he was probably more socially Christian than the others there.

To cite another Founder--Hamilton was religious, then more deist, then back to religion shortly before he died, but was largely in that deistic period during the war and Constitutional Convention, so for his "founding" purposes, he was deist as well, at least partially.

In short--the people who we think of when we think of the ideological and social core of the American Founders were, by and large, deist...or, to paraphrase an author you hold in such low esteem:

All founders are equal, but some Founders are more "equal" than others (especially when they write all men are created equal and then go out and hold slaves, I guess.)

Yeah, sure. If the founding fathers don't confirm to what you said, let's just redefine the whole group altogether. Brilliant.

Crikey, Obiwan, you're being thicker than usual on this one.

Since you're fond of wikipedia, here's what Dissenter means.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dissenter

Protestant who is not part of the Established church. Doesn't mean someone who is Anti-Protestant/Non-Protestant.

"In short--the people who we think of when we think of the ideological and social core of the American Founders were, by and large, deist...or, to paraphrase an author you hold in such low esteem:"

So in other words you're going to cherry pick a small number of certain founders and extrapolate that to mean that only their opinions matter and everybody else is irrelevant. Not only that, you even manage to cherry pick the views of certain founders during particular times of their lives because they otherwise don't follow your argument. Here's another example of you "admitting when you're wrong", right?

"...But it's precisely BECAUSE of what happened 2,000-1,400 years ago that we have this fight today...the Jewish Diaspora and the spread of Christianity and the birth of Islam.


Only one of the events you listed has anything to do with the Jews, rather they are Christian-Muslim conflicts. So how is it relevant to the current conflict between Arabs and Israelis? That's like saying the Irish situation with the UK has been going back 1200 years because of the Viking wars. Christians don't have anything really to do with the conflict.

"Historically speaking, I'm willing to bet more have died in/for "the Holy Land" than...Belgium."

That's ridiculous. Belgium was the scene of virtually every war involving the Germans, French, Hapsburgs, and occasionally the British even got involved. These battles were also not puny affairs, like the conflicts in Palestine. See: various battles of Ypres in WWI, which alone probably exceeded anything that ever took place in the Holy Land.

"So for all your bashing Israeli occupation, you're fine with a power occupying the territory that's not the Palestinians...as long as it's not Israel? Even if it's, as you say, a backwater, whereas modern Israel, despite all the setbacks with this perpetual war, is anything but a backwater?"

I'm simply saying that the area was peaceful for several hundred years with no conflict so you can't claim that the conflict goes back 2,000 years.

@Obi:

If you're going to go after me with emotional arguments, fine, I'll bite.

I've been going to synagogue regularly for my entire life, and for years the rabbis and other members of the clergy would tell us that as Jews, we have a responsibility to Israel, and we do, because it's our homeland. It's the one place in the world where Jews as a people have never faced systematic racism or violence on the part of their own government, and it's the one place in the world where, in the aftermath of World War II, the Zionists believed they could worship in peace.

However, as part of our responsibility to Israel as Jews, similarly to our responsibility to uphold democratic values as Americans, we should all immediately recognize the kind of oppression that the Israeli government is perpetuating unto the Palestinian people. The Israelis have broken a number of treaties and government-backed agreements with not only the Palestinians but with other Arab nations looking to protect their brethren. They've sent their military into Palestinian lands and ordered gunfire on Palestinians after they'd been attacked with stones - while driving tanks. Moreover, they've denied these charges, unwilling to face the consequences even when presented with clear evidence of their unlawful actions.

Obi, Jews aren't "your people." You live in the United States and you've never walked past that checkpoint like I have, and you've never looked at that wall from the eastern side. You've never looked at pictures of that wall that you took in Israel and compared them to the Berlin Wall, of which, by the way, three blocks sit on my dresser in my bedroom. You've never looked at the very guns that the Russians fired at civilians as they tried to cross from east to west - from one side of their city to the other. The checkpoint walls are within Jerusalem. They split it east and west. You don't understand the shameful symbolism that brings into my mind, and you don't understand how far the people of East Berlin went to knock that wall down and how far the people of East Jerusalem will go to bring that wall down too. Better yet, you have never faced the reality of the Israeli government does, and you have never considered how non-Jewish their actions are and how much of a black mark they put on what I believe is at its base the most peaceful of the three largest Western religions.

When people tell me that the Jews are doing exactly what was done unto them during the Holocaust, I tell them no, the Israeli government is, because the Israeli government represents the sickest and most vile form of Judaism I have ever seen, and excusing their actions simply because someone else is just as evil as they are is simply allowing them to continue.

Oy with the Berlin Wall stuff.

http://www.counterpunch.org/2009/10/02/the-fall-of-the-berlin-wall/

Are you countering what I said or supporting it with that...?

I would like to start by admitting that I didn't read most of the responses.

I respectfully disagree with the original post.

America *is* a Christian country.

I don't mean that in a confrontational way, in the way that many Christian political activists do. After all, even though a pluralistic, multicultural, multi-faith Christian country, America is still a Christian country.

I firmly believe that nearly anyone of any faith can, under the right circumstances be comfortable here.

Yet I view it disfavorably that when people express that it is not a Christian country. What I tend to find, is that these people subtly recognize that it is a Christian country but, were they more honest, they would instead communicate that they wish it weren't a Christian country. Besides which, were it not to be a Christian country, it would cease to be America.

Anti-Christians (by which I do not mean non-Christians) puzzle me. Why would they camp out in the middle of a Christian country, and then immediately seek conflict with the many wonderful Christians that populate it?

This is especially confounding when we live directly adjacent to a country that can potentially be described as the essentially more liberal, less faith-based version of America, one with a reasonably lenient immigration policy.

I am likewise puzzled by the sorts of people who move to Mexico even though they hate Spaniards, people who move to Philadelphia even though they hate cheese-steak and people who move to Alaska even though they hate snow. It demonstrates a puzzling degree of both disrespect and intolerance.

The United States is CLEARLY a Christian nation.

Pay no attention to the whiny Jew behind the curtain.

@Al ... You can argue that, but you can't try to separate yourself from the "Christian political activists" if you do.

"That's ridiculous. Belgium was the scene of virtually every war involving the Germans, French, Hapsburgs, and occasionally the British even got involved. These battles were also not puny affairs, like the conflicts in Palestine. See: various battles of Ypres in WWI, which alone probably exceeded anything that ever took place in the Holy Land."

You're really going to argue that 2,000+ years of fighting in one area was surassed by WWI alone?

http://necrometrics.com/pre1700a.htm

An estimated 3 million died in the Crusades ALONE.

Over the Holy Land. That's ONE of the many, many, MANY conflicts over the region in its history.


1st Ypres: 130,000 German + 108,000 Allied [= 238,000]
2nd Ypres: 35,000 German + 60,000 UK [+ 10,000 Fr. = 105,000]
3rd Ypres: 260,000 German + 300,000 UK + 8,500 Fr. [= 568,500]

^Same site's estimate for Ypres.

Tell me again how Belgium's home to more bloodshed than the Holy Land?

And, again, that's JUST counting the Crusades.

"When people tell me that the Jews are doing exactly what was done unto them during the Holocaust, I tell them no, the Israeli government is, because the Israeli government represents the sickest and most vile form of Judaism I have ever seen, and excusing their actions simply because someone else is just as evil as they are is simply allowing them to continue."

1. When the Israeli government burs, gasses, and executes 6 million Palestinian civilians, then I'll say they're on par with the Holocaust--there's a big difference between "human rights violations" and "one of the worst crimes in modern history."

2. As evil? I'll hold off on the criticism there first...I'd like to know why you consider them AS evil as Hamas and Hezbollah.

3. I'm getting tired of saying this...I'm not defending the damn Israeli government, I've said that about five times in this thread ALONE, I've said repeatedly I think they need a regime change and BADLY...

To put it in bald, blunt terms--

I think Hamas and Hezbollah are wholly indefensible terrorist organizations,
I think the Israeli Right could transform Israel into (more of) an Apartheid state.

BOTH need to go...I maintain the latter is still preferable to the former, but that IS still picking the less of two turds.

The Palestinians in the West Bank I sympathize with,
The Israeli Left and moderates I sympathize with.

THEY are the forces getting caught in the middle of a clash between the Far Right of their respective peoples and religions.

I'm defending Israel insofar as I'm defending those Israelis,
I'm defending the Palestinians insofar as I'm defending those Palestinians.

And, AGAIN--understanding WHY policies are in place is *NOT* the same as condoning them. I understand WHY Israel has harsh, even cruel practices--doesn't mean I agree with them. They're cruel. They're extremely cruel.

They're also fighting against extremely cruel people. If you wanted to flip things, I understand why Palestinians feel animosity towards the Israelis in the West Bank and might be tempted to attack them...I don't agree with that violence, but I can understand WHY they feel that way and what would prompt them to do what they do.

Is that really so hard to grasp, that difference between understanding a policy's larger context and condoning it?

"Better yet, you have never faced the reality of the Israeli government does, and you have never considered how non-Jewish their actions are and how much of a black mark they put on what I believe is at its base the most peaceful of the three largest Western religions."

I JUST GOT DONE SAYING THEIR ACTIONS WERE SHAMEFUL, BO SOX...

DO. YOU. NOT. READ?

If I'm going to get bashed on this, I'd rather it be for my actual stances, and NOT because someone failed to read my description of Israel's policies as shameful human rights violations.

And with all due respect, you're pulling a bit of a SantaClausowitz here in terms of your "The Jews are not your people because you haven't been there" bit.

If you want to say the Israelis aren't my people...fine. I'd argue that and say, again, my family sent weapons to fight the war, we've pulled for Israel for generations now, I'm not Israeli and thus the Israelis aren't my people, but the Jews ARE.

"You don't understand the shameful symbolism that brings into my mind"

Well, no, bo_sox, I don't have a glossary to your mind, and to my recollection, have haven't mentioned this issue you have before, so how would I understand your feelings on a matter you haven't spoken of before?

I think that your Berlin parallel does and doesn't work--the Wall obviously brings that parallel to mind, but at the same time, there's been an Old and New city for a while now, that predates the Israeli-Palestinian conflicts, so the split (if not the actual wall) is older than that and predates Israel.

As for the whole tanks/stones symbolism--

You know what...I agree with you, AGAIN, Israel's done plenty of shameful things, I'm not denying that--

I'm saying 1. I'll take them over Hamas and Hezbollah any day and 2. I AM happy this time, at least, it's the Jews with the tanks and not the stones, after 2,000 years of the symbolic reverse.

I'm not saying they should do what they do--but I AM happy they're at least capable of defending themselves and in the position of power for a change...

Now, if we can get a government in there that doesn't ABUSE that power, we might just have something...though again, it's pretty easy to run on the "Defense First" ticket in Israel when they experience thousands of rocket attacks and many suicide bombings a year.

Hamas/Hezbollah contributes to Israel's cruel treatment of innocent Palestinians, and Israel's cruel reprisals ensures the Palestinians keep turning to Hamas/Hezbollah.

Does no one else see that as a vicious, two-sided circle? Or is it just fashionable to blame the big baddies in the tanks, because of...um...symbolism?