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Politics : Just the Facts, Ma'am: A Compendium of Liberal Fiction -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Solon who wrote (50743)	8/30/2006 4:50:48 PM
From: Lazarus_Long	Respond to of 90947

Oh, THOSE nutcases. The great majority of Jews do not agree with them and reject them. And it rather common for Christian sects to consider that only Christians can make Heaven. I would suspect Muslims consider that only Muslims can make heaven. The Jewish people have long struggled to soften some of the terrible writings in the Talmud and some of the racist implications of the Old Testament--which remains of course a Testament of the Jews. I applaud these efforts and I support the modern Jewish movement away from the Chosen People to the "choosing people"--an attempt to separate the "Jewish soul" idea from blood lines and to equate it with ethical character. Most Jews are quite aware that their own house is rather dirty. They know that a good percentage of Jews do not lead moral and ethical lives. Gush Emunim 's success in changing Israeli settlement policy in the 1970s is politically explicable. Defense Minister Moshe Dayan determined Israeli settlement policy from the end of the 1967 war unti11974. He did not allow the establishment of Jewish settlements in the bulk of the territories. The only exception he made was to allow a tiny group of Jewish settlers to live near Hebron. Dayan wanted to envelop the densely inhabited parts of these areas by creating a settlement zone in the almost uninhabited Jordan Valley and northern Sinai (the Yamit area). In order to preserve the Israeli alliance with the feudal notables who were in firm control of the villages (although not of the larger towns), Dayan promised not to confiscate village lands; he mostly kept his promise. Gush Emunim demonstrated its strength by organizing enormous demonstrations in 1974 and 1975 opposing the Dayan promise. These demonstrations were also directed against United States Secretary of State Henry Kissinger for backing the Dayan policy. Peres, who became defense minister after Dayan in 1974 in the first Rabin government (1974-77), initiated a new policy which he called "functional compromise" and for which he acquired Gush Emunim support. According to this policy all the land inside the West Bank and the Gaza Strip that was not being used by the inhabitants could be confiscated for the exclusive use of the Jews. Palestinian political leaders who accepted this new policy arrangement would be offered absolute rule over Palestinians. The government of the State of Israel would control only certain essential functions in Palestinian areas. Possibly the biggest mistake the state of Israel ever made. It violated international law and gave their enemies a point of legitimate criticism.