"it was religious Jews who were best positioned to make peace with the Palestinians and the Muslim world generally"
Religious Jews, or any Jews, aren't in a position to address much of the problem.
1) Israelis are widely seen throughout the region as just the latest in a long line of European invaders going back 1,000 years. Justly or not, Israelis will be forever burdened with that history.
2) Israel's great success as a nation presents an existential threat to all the corrupt inept despotic regimes in the region. Not a military threat, but a political threat. Arab and Persian citizens can see for themselves that their governments have been incapable of delivering what the Israelis have clearly proven to be possible.
I can no longer highlight or copy/paste anything in any Substack comment section, so I think I'll end it there, as I'm getting kind of fed up with the primitive nature of this platform.
1. If you're a secular Arab nationalist, then yes, you probably consider Israel to be the remnant of a retreating British colonialists who, as they made their exit, dropped a placeholder for future Western influence. But secular Arab nationalism has been on the wane since the death of Nasser, so I don't think your analysis works. By contrast, the Iranian mullahs are all about the restoration of the Islamic caliphate. They're telling themselves a story about history, and the modern nation-state of Israel f**ks up that story. So either the story vanishes, or Israel does. For the mullahs, the choice is easy.
2. I don't buy this argument. The "existential threat" that Israel poses is not economic or political; it's existential, as in: Who am I? What am I doing here? What's the purpose of my life -- and of human history? Those are what I call "the Jewish questions," and they drive lots of people crazy. Problem is, the Islamic answers have led Muslims on a crusade that has colonized land from Morocco to Indonesia. Meanwhile, Israelis live on a strip of land the size of New Jersey.
Re: the primitive nature of this platform -- it will only be fully primitive if you leave it, Phil.
Thank you Alan. Until the blog comment feature is fixed I'm taking a break from blog comments at least. Notes still works, ping me there any time, always happy to hear from you.
I'm about to investigate a paid UFO forum. Expectations are modest, but if it's any good at all I may vanish to there for awhile. We'll see.
You can't hide from me, Phil. If you exit to some paid UFO forum, I'll just follow you there and keep hectoring you about Isaac and Ishmael. :-) ... >> Keep me posted.
"it was religious Jews who were best positioned to make peace with the Palestinians and the Muslim world generally"
Religious Jews, or any Jews, aren't in a position to address much of the problem.
1) Israelis are widely seen throughout the region as just the latest in a long line of European invaders going back 1,000 years. Justly or not, Israelis will be forever burdened with that history.
2) Israel's great success as a nation presents an existential threat to all the corrupt inept despotic regimes in the region. Not a military threat, but a political threat. Arab and Persian citizens can see for themselves that their governments have been incapable of delivering what the Israelis have clearly proven to be possible.
I can no longer highlight or copy/paste anything in any Substack comment section, so I think I'll end it there, as I'm getting kind of fed up with the primitive nature of this platform.
#74, #122, and #439 :-)
1. If you're a secular Arab nationalist, then yes, you probably consider Israel to be the remnant of a retreating British colonialists who, as they made their exit, dropped a placeholder for future Western influence. But secular Arab nationalism has been on the wane since the death of Nasser, so I don't think your analysis works. By contrast, the Iranian mullahs are all about the restoration of the Islamic caliphate. They're telling themselves a story about history, and the modern nation-state of Israel f**ks up that story. So either the story vanishes, or Israel does. For the mullahs, the choice is easy.
2. I don't buy this argument. The "existential threat" that Israel poses is not economic or political; it's existential, as in: Who am I? What am I doing here? What's the purpose of my life -- and of human history? Those are what I call "the Jewish questions," and they drive lots of people crazy. Problem is, the Islamic answers have led Muslims on a crusade that has colonized land from Morocco to Indonesia. Meanwhile, Israelis live on a strip of land the size of New Jersey.
Re: the primitive nature of this platform -- it will only be fully primitive if you leave it, Phil.
Hope all is well.
Thank you Alan. Until the blog comment feature is fixed I'm taking a break from blog comments at least. Notes still works, ping me there any time, always happy to hear from you.
I'm about to investigate a paid UFO forum. Expectations are modest, but if it's any good at all I may vanish to there for awhile. We'll see.
You can't hide from me, Phil. If you exit to some paid UFO forum, I'll just follow you there and keep hectoring you about Isaac and Ishmael. :-) ... >> Keep me posted.
Good!! Will do!