You don't like his conclusion, obviously, that the desire to liberate homelands is primarily secular.
It is not his conclusion. It is his premise, as he offers no arguments for it whatsoever, but simply presents it as self-evident. My point was that it was far from self-evident, and needed proof. I cited the Crusader's desire for Jerusalem as a religiously-motivated desire for land - and so it is. The Crusaders may have had mixed motives then, and Hamas may have mixed motives today, but that doesn't make their motives "secular".
The fact that a people want land, is separate from their idea of how they will rule that land, or what religion they will worship on that land. Two separable issues
Sez who? Sez you? For lots of people, particularly lots of Muslim people, the issues are not separate at all.
It's kind of funny that on one hand I have to argue with you that the Zionism is a nationalist, not a religious, movement; that the Zionists didn't just take the Torah for a land deed; on the other, that the current state of 'Palestinianism' (whatever its secular origins) is not particularly secular, particularly not the Hamas/PIJ suicide bombing branch of it.
But then, since you clearly regard religious motives as discreditable, I can see why you would be reluctant to ascribe them to the Palestinians. |
