Doomed.

[quicksand]

We're doomed. Doomed. Doomed.

 

My best friend (a somewhat-liberal, evolution-hating, young-earth creationist devout christian) just moved out of his neighborhood. Since there are many many temples near-by, many Orthodox Jews live there so they can stroll to the temple and observe the laws and I have become to know many of them and have made friends of higher-acquintance status. It's cool.

 

Anyway, as I was lighting this kid's cigarette while packing up the last of my best friends stuff (he can smoke, he just can't create a flame - go figure) we got into a discussion and I don't know how it got started. He's an American-born kid in his early 20's that serving in the Israeli military and was back for the holiday on his first leave. (I thought you were supposed to lose your citizenship for serving in another countries military.) Now, I remember how the conversation started. I asked him if you could be an atheist and Jew after he stated first, that worldwide there was something like 15 million Jews and only 4 to 5 million of them are religious, which seems to me you can be an atheist and Jew.He never answered me though but said something about "there are no atheist in foxholes." (The religious are so clever aren't they?) Whatever. (If a god can only give evidence of himself through fear is no god I want a part of.)

 

So I kept just asking him questions on why he was so certain that he had the right religion. And of course, Muslims are wrong and Christians are wrong etc... I could see the certainty in his eyes and the arguments he gave in turn to my questions are exactly like every silly christian on this board gives. The blind certainty in this young man's eyes and knowing that he would die for Israel because some book of myths says that such and such a land is theres is just a shame. (However, I am not arguing against a state of Isreal with that.) He's a bright kid and he wants to be a doctor someday. He's so certain that the 3rd temple will be built. Does he stop to consider that in order to do so, genocide will have to happen first. Ugh.

 

That's why we are doomed. Doomed. Doomed. Doomed.

 

All these religious fanatics will nuke us to death and oblivion and say its god's will.

 

Sorry, I am ranting. But this just disturbs me to no end and so I will probably keep posting random thoughts about it.

[Robbobrob]

You just learned a valuble lesson in religion....they are all nutty as a mad hatter. Especially when they use words like "Orthodox" or "Fundemental". they don't even know the original intent of the rules they follow, but follow they must (to the letter) or God will punish them.

 

I remember being so disappointed in college when I found out that my beloved Taoism (of which I had studied the philosophy of, but not the religion of) was also full of rituals and superstitions and myths that have nothing to do with the original concept. That was a crushing blow against all religions for me. I had looked high and low for a sytem of faith that did not reduce itself to scared participants or making them do foolish rituals that lock the people's minds into one way of thinking, and making all other thoughts "evil".

[Guest]

I've asked a xtian before if he was born in India to a Hindu family, does he think he would live his life out as a Hindu or would he somehow discover that xtianity is the only true faith and convert.

 

"I'd probally be a Hindu, because it's what I know".

 

I then asked what about being born in Iran.

 

"I'd probally stay a Muslim"

 

I then asked how he can tell me that xtainity is the only true religion if he truly feels he would be a devout follower of another faith if he was born into a different culture. His response?

 

"I know in my heart that xtianity is right".

 

I merely said "Because you were born into it, and for no other reason" and left. Luckily I had my keys in my hand when the preaching started, so I could keep it short and quick.

[Clearview]

It is freshly devastating each time one discovers that religous zealotry is even more real on the inside of a person than it appears on the outside. I think a part of us is certain that these otherwise normal people aren't really as crazy as they appear. I had a similar awakening with my dad this weekend, and it was horrible.

[Requiem]

"There are no atheist in foxholes."

 

That is no argument against atheists, it's an argument against foxholes.

[quicksand]

"I'd probally be a Hindu, because it's what I know".

The coincidence of geography. So obvious to us (and them it seems) but they just can't go that step further.

 

It is freshly devastating each time one discovers that religous zealotry is even more real on the inside of a person than it appears on the outside. I think a part of us is certain that these otherwise normal people aren't really as crazy as they appear. I had a similar awakening with my dad this weekend, and it was horrible.

Very true. What was also a huge surprise to me is that this orthodox Jewish kid, sounded in everyway like the Christians. But, why should I be surprised? I've studied this stuff up and down and after all, Judiasm, Islam, and Christianity are all Aberhamic religions, but it is another thing to experience this face-to-face and outside of the computer. Breathtaking.

 

What did your pops say J?

 

"There are no atheist in foxholes."

 

That is no argument against atheists, it's an argument against foxholes.

:0

 

The only bit of induction that argument shows is the religious beliefs of people. Not evidence. I asked this kid if he was an agremlinist. He said no cause he never saw one. I told him I never saw god yet myself. The logic escaped his steal-trapped mind. But why should I be surprised? His up-bringing was as fundemental as any home-schooled religious kid is.

[Lycorth]

You just learned a valuble lesson in religion....they are all nutty as a mad hatter. Especially when they use words like "Orthodox" or "Fundemental". they don't even know the original intent of the rules they follow, but follow they must (to the letter) or God will punish them.

 

That's so true; talking to someone who believes in a literalist, hardcore interpretation of their religion is like talking to a wall. You might as well try to have a conversation with your asshole. If you don't ascribe to their worldview, they just dismiss everything you say. It applies to any religion; I remember practically pulling my hair out when trying to talk with very fundamentalist Asatruar a while back. It turned me off to the religion until I learned to treat them like I do all Abrahmic fundies - by just ignoring them.

 

But one can certainly be a Jew and an Atheist. "Jew" is an ethnic term, not a religious one. And talking to an Orthodox Jew, who believes his god will make the world his footstool and that he's special just because he was lucky enough be born in the right ethnic group, is as bad as talking to an fundy Xian. Different asshole, same shit that comes from it.

[Dave]

.....I asked him if you could be an atheist and Jew after he stated first, that worldwide there was something like 15 million Jews and only 4 to 5 million of them are religious, which seems to me you can be an atheist and Jew.....

No one addressed this part yet.... I've met quite a few Jews that were Atheists. All one needs to be Jewish is a Jewish mother. The secular Jews I know are Jewish in culture only. They like the history and the culture. Though one told me the Jewish holidays will never catch on because they have no good songs and the holiday food is awful. Who actually likes gefilte fish? And how many times can you sing Dradle Dradle Dradle and Hava Nagila?

 

The others were right, orthodox or fundamentalist, no difference. We're doomed.

[pitchu]

Varokhar:

"Jew" is an ethnic term, not a religious one.

*****************************

 

Jew(s) (n) - members of a people based on a background of shared historical experience and of religious heritage (Judaism). Membership is through birth or conversion. Not all Jews are religious. Most North American Jews are descended from immigrants from Eastern Europe. Jews can be understood in both ethnic and religious terms.

[bolding mine]

 

From "The Diversity Dictionary" here:

http://www.osu.edu/diversity/dictionary.php

 

Dave,

Gefilte fish is one of my most favorite foods -- at Passover, my mother-in-law always lets me take home the unopened jar (which, I suspect, she's bought extra just for me).

[Mike D]

When I decided I had enough of Christianity I also made a decision not to bother looking into other religions. A few people asked why not..... "you're on a search for truth, right"? The thing is, I always believed all religions are nothing more than cultural phenomena, just like language, dress, traditions, etc, which is closely tied to geography. Every culture throughout history as far back as we can see has had their own gods and beliefs: Egyptian, Aztec, Greek, Celtic, Mayan, African, etc. etc. etc. the list goes on and on. Anyway stories like this thread just confirm what I always thought and that I was right not to waste my time. I can never understand why so many people don't see this.... it's so painfully obvious.

[Lycorth]

From "The Diversity Dictionary" here:

http://www.osu.edu/diversity/dictionary.php

 

Pretty much jives with Merriam-Webster's definition. I know the definition kinda goes both ways in that respect, but it seems that it hinges on heritage far more than religious beliefs. Seems to be more logical that way, especially when talking about a Jew who is also an Atheist or a Xian, for example

 

It's just one of those things that really needs to have its definition tightened up.

[Dave]

Dave,

Gefilte fish is one of my most favorite foods -- at Passover, my mother-in-law always lets me take home the unopened jar (which, I suspect, she's bought extra just for me).

OK. I must confess.... I've never had the stuff. It just doesn't look right. Should I try a jar? How does one eat a ball of fish soaking in some kind of liquid?

[quicksand]

The others were right, orthodox or fundamentalist, no difference. We're doomed.

This is the part I chew on the most Dave. It seems to me that (Orthodox) Jews in Israel and Fundamentalists Christians here would benefit the most by atheism if all Muslims in that area renounced god belief and Islam and took up a life of reason and not fundamentalist religion which says that land is theirs for religious reasons. No longer would the arabs of that area see that piece of desert as Holy Land and I think, less emotionally invested in it. Only those that wait for the Jewish Messiah or Jesus to return for the slaughter in Revelation would have that connection. Well, true, there would still be other incentives for Arabs of the area to fight over the land with their non-Arab co-residents, but at least you'd remove the religious claim and Jews could build the Third Temple.

 

I should have posed this question to this kid, who thinks no one is an atheist. What would he think then? He'd probably stick to his assertion anyway. But at that point it wouldn't matter if the regional Arabs still covertly believed in god or not, at least, they be "practicing" atheism.

 

I don't know. An impossible scenario I know. And as the West (namely the US) invades predominately Muslim countries, more Muslims are less likely to renounce the religion and adhere to it out of nationalism and personal identity.

 

I don't see how that Third Temple will ever be built, unless a mass slaughter of every non-Jew in the area is to happen since there is a mosque on that site presently.

It's just one of those things that really needs to have its definition tightened up.

I got one for both you and Pitchu.

 

What if you are a convert that does not have a Jewish mother and decide to lapse in your practice and revert to the natural state of atheism?

 

[Robbobrob]

My son is being raised Jewish. Cultural Jewish, that is. Me and his mom (my ex-wife) had a long discussion via e-mail about his religion. I always assumed he would be raised Jewish, his mother being one. Plus, I believe if there ever comes a time when some Nazi-like group takes power, I want him to know why he is being targeted.

 

I went to my nearby synagogue, and talked to a wonderful Reconstructionist Rabbi about me, as a self-described Heathen, helping raise a Jewish son. When I told my ex, she told me that all of that was unnecessary, she did not want to overload him (I think she used the word "overkill" in the e-mail). She was going to raise him as a Cultural Jew, just as she was raised (getting the best of both worlds, Christmas and Hannakah, Passover and Easter).

 

So, I was like, OK, then there should be no problem with me bringing him to my church for special things.

 

YEAH, RIGHT. You'd think I tried to Baptize the kid and make hime Christian (YUCK!!). She flipped out. Not even a practicing Orthodox Jew, and she flipped out. He is to be raised as a Cultural Reform Jew, but don't think about ever teaching him what me, his father, believes.

 

Point is, even with the marginally religious, they can be just as adament about what little they believe as those who believe EVERYTHING about their chosen faith.

 

* I have just gained edit mode (magic number is 30). I am so happy I could poop myself. LOL

[pitchu]

OK. I must confess.... I've never had the stuff. It just doesn't look right. Should I try a jar? How does one eat a ball of fish soaking in some kind of liquid?

I suspect that there's a low ratio of whitefish and pike to the matzoh meal and egg in these hand-shaped little dears, if that makes it more palatable for you. Personally, I prefer the gel to the clear liquid. Put a dab of horseradish on the side of your plate and pick up an infinitessimal amount of it with every forkful. Then go, "Mmmmm...."

 

The jars in the markets should be at reduced price now, after Passover.

 

Be brave, Dave.

 

quicksand Posted Today, 08:22 AM:

 

I got one for both you and Pitchu.

 

What if you are a convert that does not have a Jewish mother and decide to lapse in your practice and revert to the natural state of atheism?

Since there are enough Jews who've converted to Bhuddism to cause the coining of the (sly) term, Bhu-ish, I don't see why the person you describe can't be called a Jaitheist.

[Dave]

The others were right, orthodox or fundamentalist, no difference. We're doomed.

This is the part I chew on the most Dave. It seems to me that (Orthodox) Jews in Israel and Fundamentalists Christians here would benefit the most by atheism if all Muslims in that area renounced god belief and Islam....

I'll have to disagree with you on that. Those fundamentalist Jews and Christians would have to give up their gods too. The whole area would benefit the most if Israel would cease with it's religious claim to the whole area. No one has to get rid of their gods, just their unfounded claims.

 

I don't know. An impossible scenario I know. And as the West (namely the US) invades predominately Muslim countries, more Muslims are less likely to renounce the religion and adhere to it out of nationalism and personal identity.

Could you blame them? And I still don't get why the Muslims are the ones that have to renounce their religion? All 3 of those religions need to rein in their fundamentalists but expecting someone to give up their religion is like asking someone to cut off a body part.

 

I don't see how that Third Temple will ever be built, unless a mass slaughter of every non-Jew in the area is to happen since there is a mosque on that site presently.

It's not going to be built.

[Dave]

I suspect that there's a low ratio of whitefish and pike to the matzoh meal and egg in these hand-shaped little dears, if that makes it more palatable for you.

I did some reading, and isn't that what it's supposed to be - a way to stretch a fish to feed the whole family and to remove the bones at a time when to do so was permissible?

 

Personally, I prefer the gel to the clear liquid. Put a dab of horseradish on the side of your plate and pick up an infinitessimal amount of it with every forkful. Then go, "Mmmmm...."

 

The jars in the markets should be at reduced price now, after Passover.

 

Be brave, Dave.

OK. Gel it is. But I bet the homemade is better than that in the store.

[quicksand]

The others were right, orthodox or fundamentalist, no difference. We're doomed.

This is the part I chew on the most Dave. It seems to me that (Orthodox) Jews in Israel and Fundamentalists Christians here would benefit the most by atheism if all Muslims in that area renounced god belief and Islam....

I'll have to disagree with you on that. Those fundamentalist Jews and Christians would have to give up their gods too. The whole area would benefit the most if Israel would cease with it's religious claim to the whole area. No one has to get rid of their gods, just their unfounded claims.

I am only proposing this as a counter-argument to the kid's argument that everyone believes in God. (While echoing Sam Harris point that an outbreak of "fundamentalist" Jainism would probably be a good thing right now as opposed to the violence of Aberhamic religions.) Being an atheist, I would love to see an abandonment of religious myth or likewise harmful dogmas. However, you propose another easy-soltuon, but that was outside of the provenance of my argument to the kid.

 

I don't know. An impossible scenario I know. And as the West (namely the US) invades predominately Muslim countries, more Muslims are less likely to renounce the religion and adhere to it out of nationalism and personal identity.

Could you blame them? And I still don't get why the Muslims are the ones that have to renounce their religion? All 3 of those religions need to rein in their fundamentalists but expecting someone to give up their religion is like asking someone to cut off a body part.

I don't blame them. It's why I bring it up. Obviously, neither of the three types of religious adherents are going to do just that...give up their religions.

 

And I think your comparison to cutting off a body part is a bit severe. There are many examples of former preachers and even Muslims who renounce the belief. Might be painful, but you are in no way gonna die because of it. (Unless an believer kills you for aposty.) I state the obvious I know.

I don't see how that Third Temple will ever be built, unless a mass slaughter of every non-Jew in the area is to happen since there is a mosque on that site presently.

It's not going to be built.

Not without a genocide...sure.

[Dave]

I am only proposing this as a counter-argument to the kid's argument that everyone believes in God.

The only counter argument to that is that there are about 45 million non believers in the USA alone. He even admitted that not all believe when he a large percentage of Jews were secular.

 

(While echoing Sam Harris point that an outbreak of "fundamentalist" Jainism would probably be a good thing right now as opposed to the violence of Aberhamic religions.) Being an atheist, I would love to see an abandonment of religious myth or likewise harmful dogmas. However, you propose another easy-soltuon, but that was outside of the provenance of my argument to the kid.

I'd have to agree with Harris on that. Harris also pointed out that Martin Luther King got his peace ideas from Gandhi who got them from the Jains. Interesting how MLK came to peaceful ideas through the Jains instead of christianity.

 

And I think your comparison to cutting off a body part is a bit severe. There are many examples of former preachers and even Muslims who renounce the belief. Might be painful, but you are in no way gonna die because of it. (Unless an believer kills you for aposty.) I state the obvious I know.

I didn't mean they would die, but that for many their religion is as much a part of who they are as their arms or legs. You just can't ask someone to just drop their religion. They can't. It has to be a process of self weaning.

 

That temple will not be built. I would defend the mosque myself. They have no right to destroy a building that's been there for centuries just to build their own.

[quicksand]

I am only proposing this as a counter-argument to the kid's argument that everyone believes in God.

The only counter argument to that is that there are about 45 million non believers in the USA alone. He even admitted that not all believe when he a large percentage of Jews were secular.

He doesn't accept that as evidence. You see, he can read minds aparently.

 

(While echoing Sam Harris point that an outbreak of "fundamentalist" Jainism would probably be a good thing right now as opposed to the violence of Aberhamic religions.) Being an atheist, I would love to see an abandonment of religious myth or likewise harmful dogmas. However, you propose another easy-soltuon, but that was outside of the provenance of my argument to the kid.

I'd have to agree with Harris on that. Harris also pointed out that Martin Luther King got his peace ideas from Gandhi who got them from the Jains. Interesting how MLK came to peaceful ideas through the Jains instead of christianity.

Great point!

 

And I think your comparison to cutting off a body part is a bit severe. There are many examples of former preachers and even Muslims who renounce the belief. Might be painful, but you are in no way gonna die because of it. (Unless an believer kills you for aposty.) I state the obvious I know.

I didn't mean they would die, but that for many their religion is as much a part of who they are as their arms or legs. You just can't ask someone to just drop their religion. They can't. It has to be a process of self weaning.

 

That temple will not be built. I would defend the mosque myself. They have no right to destroy a building that's been there for centuries just to build their own.

I doubt I defend it.

[Dave]

The only counter argument to that is that there are about 45 million non believers in the USA alone. He even admitted that not all believe when he a large percentage of Jews were secular.

He doesn't accept that as evidence. You see, he can read minds aparently....

I've heard that before. I've been told that all Atheists actually believe in a god, specifically the christian one, but that we just lie about it.

[pitchu]

Dave, I think it's important to remember that your statement...

The whole area would benefit the most if Israel would cease with it's religious claim to the whole area. No one has to get rid of their gods, just their unfounded claims.

...presupposes a scenario that didn't actually happen.

 

Jews had historically always lived in the area which is now Israel; there wasn't one bizarre day when some aberrant European Jew pointed to some Torah text and said, "Hey, God says this land is ours! Let's travel across a few continents and oceans and claim it!"

 

The return, since the late 1800's, of dispersed Russian and European Jews to that area had so little to do with religion and so much to do with simply trying to stay alive that it's a kind of slam-dunk argument. The need of Jews to protect themselves from slaughter rose in exact timing and proportion to their interest in securing a Jewish homeland.

 

Endangered Jews of those years had little time to, or interest in, proposing the religious righteousness of their enforced immigration... they were trying to save their asses. And they went anywhere and everywhere they would be welcomed, which turned out to be almost nowhere. Remember the ship, The St. Louis?

 

My guess is that the average Jewish Israeli today gives not a whit for any religious basis of their being there. They're there because:

 

Would the Holocaust Have Occurred If Israel Were Around?

by Rabbi Dov Greenberg

 

Nobel Peace Laureate Elie Weisel was once asked whether the world had learned anything from the Holocaust. Wiesel responded, "Yes - that you can get away with it." If Wiesel is right, and the international fury against the collective Jewish existence in Israel in recent years seems to confirm his words, then for Jews, the lesson must be the exact opposite: never again will we allow a Holocaust to happen. That means first and foremost that Israel must be strong, spiritually, morally and militarily.

 

Between 1939 and 1945, the Nazi regime, with help from millions of other Europeans, murdered almost every Jew on that continent. Had there been an Israel in the 1930s, an untold number of Jews could have been saved. Here's why. At first, Hitler wanted merely to expel the Jews; only later did he decide to slaughter them. When the nations of the world gathered in Evian, France in 1938, fully aware of the danger facing European Jewry, one country after another declared: We have no room for the Jews.

 

From the beginning of World War II, the world was divided into two types of countries: those that expelled or murdered Jews, and those that rejected the Jews who had been expelled or who had fled from elsewhere. Had there been an Israel, there would have been a country willing to take in the Jewish refugees when America, Britain and the other nations refused.

 

A second reason the magnitude of the Holocaust would have been diminished is that, unlike the Allies, who could not find it in their power to spare a few airplanes to bomb the tracks to Auschwitz and other death camps, Israel would have.

 

In his book A Durable Peace, Benjamin Netanyahu put it simply: "Until I stood there at Birkenau, I never realized how tiny and mundane the whole thing was. The factory of death could have been put out of operation by one pass of a bomber. Indeed the Allies had been bombing strategic targets a few miles away. Had the order been given, it would have taken but a slight shift of the bomber pilot's stick to interdict the slaughter. Yet the order was never given."

 

On July 4, 1946, forty-two Jewish Holocaust survivors who had returned to their home village of Kielce, Poland were murdered in a brutal pogrom by their Polish Christian neighbors.

 

Thirty years later to the day, on July 4, 1976, more than 100 Jews who were about to be murdered in Entebbe, Uganda were saved by the Israeli army in one of the most daring rescue missions in history. More than anything else, Entebbe demonstrated the importance of a competent Israeli Defense Force. When Jews had no military of their own, they were killed with impunity. With armed forces, for the first time in 2,000 years, Jews standing at the threshold of death did not need to rely on the goodwill of others.

 

When Pope Paul VI criticized Israel's "fierceness" during a private audience with Golda Meir, she replied: "Do you know what my earliest memory is? A pogrom in Kiev. When we were merciful and when we had no homeland and when we were weak, we were led to the gas chambers."1

[bolding mine]

From here:

http://www.askmoses.com/article.html?h=161&o=176564

 

As an ex-Christian atheist I emphatically state that if my particular breed had been repeatedly exterminated, pan-planetarily, for 2000 years, I would demand, finally, a fuckin' homeland, for me and my brothers and sisters, with secure borders, an unparalleled air force and, if other homelands had 'em... nuclear weapons.

[Dave]

Dave, I think it's important to remember that your statement...

The whole area would benefit the most if Israel would cease with it's religious claim to the whole area. No one has to get rid of their gods, just their unfounded claims.

...presupposes a scenario that didn't actually happen.

 

Jews had historically always lived in the area which is now Israel.....

So have other people with just as much right to live there in peace as anyone else. From what I see, they are just fighting to protect their right to live there.

[pitchu]

Dave, I think it's important to remember that your statement...

The whole area would benefit the most if Israel would cease with it's religious claim to the whole area. No one has to get rid of their gods, just their unfounded claims.

...presupposes a scenario that didn't actually happen.

 

Jews had historically always lived in the area which is now Israel.....

So have other people with just as much right to live there in peace as anyone else. From what I see, they are just fighting to protect their right to live there.

[bolding mine]

 

A lot of well-intentioned people see it that way, so you're by no means alone.

 

What most people don't understand is that it was only after Jewish immigration to the territory, and the agricultural and structural boom which those Jews brought about, that there was a tremendous influx of Arabs from the surrounding Arab nations (mainly Jordan; trans-Jordan). They came to work. They were historically without centuries-old ties to that land. Prior to Jews buying -- yes, purchasing -- land throughout the late 19th and early 20th centuries, from primarily absentee Arab landowners, the place was largely a malaria-infested swamp with some few settlements of Arabs and nomadic Arabs.

 

It wasn't a country. It, and the Arabs in it, hadn't been of use to the powers of the surrounding Arab nations until "The Palestinian Cause" could be used as leverage for these nations' desires. Below, from the horse's mouth, is the now-seldom-spoken Arab view of the situation. Muhsein's words also help to explain why, after Israel was aggressed upon, the Arab nations who were the aggressors chose not to re-integrate the Arab regugees into their borders, but, rather, name them Palestinians and leave them as a festering sore to cause indignation and hatred of Israel within the world community.

 

Even today, with the U.S. accounting for approximately one fourth of all international monies pledged for helping the "Palestinians," all 22 Arab nations combined have pledges amounting to only approximately 5% of the total. This is how much they weep for their suffering former citizens. Or maybe they just don't have the bucks.

 

It has been one of the most successful "lies of leverage" in modern history.

 

 

The Palestinian people [do] not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct 'Palestinian people' to oppose Zionism.

 

For tactical reasons, Jordan, which is a sovereign state with defined borders, cannot raise claims to Haifa and Jaffa. While as a Palestinian, I can undoubtedly demand Haifa, Jaffa, Beer-Sheva and Jerusalem. However, the moment we reclaim our right to all of Palestine, we will not wait even a minute to unite Palestine and Jordan. (PLO executive committee member Zahir Muhsein, March 31, 1977, interview with the Dutch newspaper Trouw.)

 

Hegemony, greed, divisiveness and hatred have been the root of this Palestinian illusion which has been sold to kind and caring people all over the world.

[Dave]

Dave, I think it's important to remember that your statement...

The whole area would benefit the most if Israel would cease with it's religious claim to the whole area. No one has to get rid of their gods, just their unfounded claims.

...presupposes a scenario that didn't actually happen.

 

Jews had historically always lived in the area which is now Israel.....

So have other people with just as much right to live there in peace as anyone else. From what I see, they are just fighting to protect their right to live there.

[bolding mine]

 

A lot of well-intentioned people see it that way, so you're by no means alone.

I would substitute "well-intentioned" for neutral.

 

It wasn't a country.

It was and those living there did not have to develop their country in a way that pleased others. I'm sure those that were/are living there have a much different story to tell. I'm sure the truth is in the middle.