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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (116704)	10/13/2003 3:09:13 AM
From: Maurice Winn	Respond to of 281500

<You can't find a more racially mixed society than Israel, and the Palestinians are not far behind.> Really? I've been thinking I should go and check the place out for myself. Things up close and personal are always quite different from the distorted lenses and filters that the news media propagandists use to suit their agendas, ideologies and need for a dramatic story to sell their services and make a lot of money. Nadine, I'd consider it offensive to have to toady to religious wackoes to be married by leaving the country. In NZ, we've managed to wind back the religious control of society, but there's still enough of it around to be annoying at times. I can imagine in the Islamic areas, where political power and religious fanaticism still go hand in hand, they will be a long time separating. With some good management, the USA and Britain and the UN might succeed in setting Iraq off on a sensible path, but it'll take some serious effort. I think you've got my scriptural analysis about right. Humans go back a long way before any of the scriptures on which the current carnage is based. 'Do not steal' was invented probably about 20,000 years ago and more for internal political purposes, though stealing from enemy tribes would have been an excellent idea and still is in tribal zones. Codifying good practise was popularized when writing got under way, but oral tradition would have most of the things codified and socialized well before papyrus and hieroglyphics made their stock market runs. The superstitious stuff is inherently useless because there's no foundation for any of it other than conjecture, which any of us can do. Worse than useless, it's dangerous because suckers fall for the line and attack opponents for no good reason. False ideas are never good. It's time to update the sociological operating manuals and while we're at it, the United Nations political operating manual should be updated too. It's past its use-by date. Mqurice

To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (116704)	10/13/2003 9:15:06 PM
From: Bilow	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Hi Nadine Carroll; Re: "So the practical effect is that the "secular" Israelis demand workarounds for the stuff that really matters to them, like having the State recognize civil marriages done in Cyprus (about a half an hour trip from Tel Aviv). Which is why all the howls of certain parties saying, "see, they have to LEAVE THE COUNTRY! That proves Israel is a Jewish Fundamentalist state just as bad as Saudi Arabia!" are silly too." The link I provided (see #reply-19394647) showed that the cost of getting married in Cyprus was hundreds of dollars. And that's getting taken right out of the pocket of people who are the poorest part of Israeli society. But the fact is that they do have to "LEAVE THE COUNTRY". Hardly a friendly way to treat mixed religion couples. Like I said before, the reason that the US Southern states no longer have miscegenation laws, along with all the other racist stuff, is that the majority of the US forced them to change. That the 85% of Israel that is "secular" is unable to change their laws is ridiculous, and can hardly be excused any more than a similar failing on the part of an Arab state. The percentage of the US that was racist was a hell of a lot more than 15%, but the majority still got its way here. Israel's basic problem is that too large a percentage of their population, (FAR more than the 15% you suggest are not "secular"), believe that G_d granted them right in perpetuity to an inconvenient small chunk of land. -- Carl