At 12:38 AM -0500 3/4/02, David Griffin wrote:

>Bill asserts that what Israelis are doing in Palestine is "based on
>religion."

Don't put words into my mouth, I just did a quick search of my outgoing mail for the text string "based on religion" and couldn't find any such string in any message I've ever sent. So I have never used that phrase. Perhaps you mean I said something along those lines, or perhaps you are interpreting what you think I said. Putting the quotation marks in suggests I did use those exact words though and I didn't.

>Does he also conclude that the Palestinian resistance is "based on
>religion"-- i.e. Islam-- as well?

The question is a bit vague. To the extent that the objective of the Palestinian resistance appears to be a Palestinian state separate from and independent of the Jewish state of Israel, I suppose it could be said to be indirectly based on religion. But that would be overstating it I think.

I take it some elements of the Palestinian resistance have the sectarian goal of an Islamic Palestinian state, which is obviously a goal "based on religion". They don't seem to be in the majority though.

My suspicion is that the popular objective is a Palestinian state that would exclude Jews. If so then the answer to your question would still be yes.

If the objective is merely a nation that would include citizens of any religion, the answer to your question is no. But I'm not exactly sure what the objective is.

The reason I suspect the object is a nation that would include Jews is that I can't see any other reason to insist on a separate Palestinian state, rather than seek a single secular state for all the people there. Obviously the Jewish fanatics would be as hostile to a secular state as the Islamic fanatics, but it still seems more viable in the long run than having two neighboring states beholden to antagonistic religious fanaticism.

The objective of the Israeli Government seems to be a Jewish state with a large population of oppressed non-citizens confined to Palestinian ghettos.

The most likely outcome is another massive bloodbath. I don't know why, but the the place seems to be cursed with more zealots than Australia has flies. In the final analysis, nationalist zealots are probably indistinguishable from religious zealots. So whether its based on religion, or based on common-or-garden nationalism, I can't really say one form of zealotry is any better than the other.

Bill Bartlett
Bracknell Tas