I think its admirable that more and more Jews are finally speaking out about what the current Israeli government is doing to the Palestinians. They must have a homeland and must be returned some of the territory that was taken from them by the Israelis. Laurent's arguments are those of an old style Zionist who is using Biblical doctrine to justify the Israeli's territorial conquest. Zionists are religious fundamentalists who believe it is their right to take back a land that was "promised" to them by God. "The promised land" was already an occupied territory when the Jews arrived from Egypt according to their own scripture. I have heard many Israelis and Palestinians argue about who the land belongs to based on their religious beliefs or questionable histories of tribal disputes from thousands of years ago. As an atheist, I find these arguments particularly stupid. The Hebrew Bible is nothing more than the collected myths of one people. Their myths are no more true than those of the Greeks, the Japanese, the Chinese, the Indians etc., all of whom worship very different gods and have different creation myths. What all cultures have had in common is the mistaken notion that they are a special people whose god(s) created them and set them in the middle of the world and sanctified them as a chosen people. The actual history of the Middle East is poorly represented in the Bible. As an example, there is no evidence that Moses ever existed in the very solid records of the Egyptians. The Moses myth was borrowed from the oral traditions of other tribes in the region. The festival of Passover has been a beautiful metaphor for modern persecuted Jews to celebrate the possibility of living in freedom, but it has no factual basis (and was orignally a pagan festival that celebrated the first barley of the Spring). The tribes which came to be known as the Hebiru (Hebrews) in Egypt were migrants who were attracted to Egypt as an economic center. They were never enslaved to build the Pharaoh's monuments, they were told to leave when they became too numerous and powerful. When they did leave, they brought with them an Egyptian notion as furthered by one of the pharaohs, the idea of one god. The idea of one god was a practical one for a wandering tribe as "he" could inhabit an empty tabernacle as they wandered. If there was ever anyone who was a Moses, he was an Egyptian who left with the expelled tribes and was recast as one of them with the legend of his adoption by the pharaoh as an infant. That was all thousands of years ago. The Biblical Philistines are based on the people we know today as Palestinians. They were not the first people to settle the lands either, but they were there before the Jews. If the Israelis and Palestinians want to be completely honest and give the land back to its original inhabitants, they would have to share it as all of them are quite intermingled. The Jews and Arabs are cousins and have striking cultural similarities. It is only nuances in their religion which originally divided them. Muhammad himself sparked the original controversy when he massacred the Jews of Medina and other places in the attempt to establish himself as the final prophet. Religion and its "prophets" can be a very, very bad thing and should always be mistrusted. The Palestinians may not have had nationhood for hundreds of years, but neither have the Israelis. The Palestinians need a nation of their own so that they are not any further displaced. Over one million of them were forced out of their houses and off of lands they have lived on for centuries and into an exodus as tragic as that of any persecuted people. Whether they were living under the Jordanians, the Ottomans or the British, the Palestinians were living on their own lands until the Israeli's expelled or killed them. I have Israeli friends who will admit that their country annexed lands which did not belong to them, but they don't want to give them back since they had been developed. Well, if it was stolen, it was stolen. Everyone needs to speak up about this and not fear being labeled an anti-Semite (which would make you anti-Arab as well since both are Semitic peoples). Since I am an atheist, I must admit that I do not honor (but will always call for toleration of) the religious beliefs of others especially when those beliefs are a justification for violent acts. At one point, the idea was under consideration that the Jews should found a homeland in Argentina or Mozambique. That was a much better idea than colonizing Israel. I personally think the displaced Jews of the world should have emigrated to the United States where there story has largely been a successful one. Can anyone say that Israel was a good idea after almost 60 years of conflict? What resort do the Palestinians have other than vioIence? What horrible conditions do they live under that are they willing to kill themselves in suicide bombings? Israel is divided about this conflict, but they risk losing world sympathy if concessions are not made. It is only magical thinking and religious superstition which keep two people in a violent dispute over a worthless pile of rocks that each has deemed holy. Laurent deems the Dome of the Rock as something which should be insignificant to Muslims, but in its own time, the third temple (built on what is now the Wailing Wall) was a disputed institution by many Jews who believed its rebuilding and the institution of a priesthood was a corruption of the tenets of Judaism. Noah never loaded two of all the world's creatures onto a wooden ark. Mohammed could not move a mountain. There is no God in heaven on whom we can rely to guide our action, who is a final authority on how man should live, who intervenes in our affairs. Humans must take responsibility for creating their own morality. - Clark NP: Mahler - 8th Symphony
