Israel isn't really local. They moved in a few years ago and started bulldozing centuries old multi-generational family homes (of the people that had been living there centuries).

Religion is a tool of inequity, keeping the powerful wealthy and the poor believer a pawn in the game. America's one true friend in the region plays the game the best. Saudi Arabia!

Many of the agreements you refer to were agreements in the moment and the people agreeing were often of questionable authority. I believe that is why much of the Middle East is in "uprising Mode" today.

Empire builders go by a new name, they now affect the sphere of influence.

"I was thirteen years old when Faisal's caravan arrived (in Damascus to liberate them from Ottoman rule). Most of our people were bewildered. Only a few were nationalists. Many of our young men were still fighting in the Ottoman army. The masses welcomed Faisal but not out of patriotism. Most hoped the liberation would put an end to our wartime suffering. We had contradictory feelings about the Ottomans. Because they were Muslims like us, we had not considered them a colonial power and we counted on them to protect us from Czarist Russia and European secularism. But they governed badly. Most of our people were poor and only a handful educated, nearly all in Islamic schools. It was a pity that while Europe was having a golden age, life was so bleak in Syria....Most Syrians thought it was time for a new start. That is why there was jubilation."

An interesting quote about a time in 1918 from Bedridden Shellah.

An Agreement is Struck:

May 29, 1933 in Saudi Arabia, Standard oil of California get's exclusive rights for six decades on all the oil in Saudi Arabia, for 6 decades for 55000 pounds. The "greatest commercial prize in the history of the planet", said the State Department. In 1945, FDR promised King Saud (who used that money to solidify Saudi Arabia as a State, that he "would do nothing to assist the Jews against the Arabs and make no move hostile to the Arab people." The American Wise Men (George Marshal, Dean Acheson,, George Kennan, Charles Bohlen, etc)....opposed recognizing Israel "as an oil-poor impediment to good relations with the oil-rich and strategically located Arabs at a time when the United States was embarking on a worldwide struggle with the Soviet Union."

Such was the politics of Oil! or Such are the politics of Oil!

I was flipping dials on the radio yesterday here at the beach and picked up Glen Beck talking about Israel on a talk station. He really said it well.

"but here in this miserable little country, no bigger in relation to the rest of the world than the tip of your finger, I could see no historical reason whatever (for war). The country was tiny and already inhabited; why couldn't the Zionists leave it alone.....it would always be a prey to such ghastly horrors as those I saw every day and every night: religion, the eternal intransigence of religion, ensured that the problem would never be solved. The Holy Land seemed as near an approximation of hell on earth as I had ever seen."

Vincent Sheean (1935)

I hear Mr. Beck claims to be a prophet now? I agree with him on a lot of things. Arabs and Jews have not been honest with themselves when it comes to the history of the world and region. I agree (well he only includes the Arabs here so it is a semi agreement). The Islamic movement is the best organized group to end up on top of the political heap after all the chaos of uprising dies down. I agree. God will never allow the Israelis and the Muslims to coexist. I agree.

A key difference is his attitude is I am a Christian so we should fight it out until there is nothing left to fight for. Afterall, God's evil influence has pervaded for centuries, why stop now? His attitude is a bit like Hitlers was with Germany, if America does not stand up and defend God now then it really should not exist.

My attitude, God is so evil that there is little we can do to stop the lunatic faithful. Len believes lines on a map will do it. I believe lines just blow around in the sand. As far as America, well, it looks more and more like a failed experiment, but it has often looked that way in the past.

I don't think we should lay all of this stuff on God.

If you look back many of my posts have been on Oil Politics and vassal Kingdoms. The region has a history of autocracy mostly created by Western empires or Western Interests trying to create stable business partners to extract the oil from the ground as cheaply as possible. Thus, Saudi Arabia, the Shahs Pahlavi and even GW's buddy Sadam. This even extends to Libya. The beauty of religion as a tool as it even divides these entities. I mean shia's hate shiites. Syria, Jordan and Egypt are just big pains in the ass as they have no real value unless you plunck Israel right into the Middles of them. At least you create an arms market by doing that. It is best to keep a few wealthy powerful friends than to deal with the unpredictability of democracy. That is traditional empire building or, as they say these days influencing the sphere. The problem is the potential for unruly populations so be sure to minimize education. Keep 99% of the people poor and let the clergy derail their energies with religious traditions and hatreds.

Bingo!

my take on that statement was that people *believe* they are fighting for god--based on stuff in the said "holy" books...religious guides/each one the "truth" (re: *believe*-- some people i think are just full of shit though) but anyhow, that is how i read that statement

i believe them all (religions) to be man made constructs

i do agree that it all comes down to us

I'm confused...Which god are ya'll talking about?

Inequity is an outcome of some deal made. You assert religion was a tool used to ensure an inequity and as I follow your argument, it was used to assert the right of a bargaining party to the authority to make an inequitable bargian. In short, religion gave Faisal and others of the region the authority to sign the 1920 accords and subsequently others, the 1933 contract with Standard Oil.

Is that a correct description of your assertion?

Not quite true. Israel is a state established in 1947. The surrounding states were established circa 1921 by an agreement that included provisions for a Jewish homeland. Jews have lived in the region for as many centuries as a minority population and more had been returning in the previous centuries. Post WWII, the migration of Jews back to their ancestral homeland increased in numbers and determination with some resistance from the British government, thus the so-remembered Exodus incident.

Prior to the end of WWI, none of the nations existed. They were part of the Ottoman Empire. Some were satisfied with that suzerainty. Some were not. The Turks sided with the Germans and lost the war. If I understand Heraclitus' argument, the solution would be to roll back the victory of the Allies over Germany in WWI and give the region back to Turkey. Of course, significant parts of the map of Europe would also have to be returned to their lines prior to the surrender of Germany and some royal families would have to be reconstituted.

Somehow that doesn't seem a reasonable solution to the problems of a future Palestinian state. Diplomats have to find terms which can be negotiated to a conclusion signatories will accept. Heraclitus and Agnes are not looking for solutions or even working for the good of the Palestinian people. They are waging a war for hearts and minds regarding religion and in doing this, doing the same thing that made monsters of the men and women who began the second World War.

Religion is not a tool of inequity although as with all persuasive ideas, it can be used to motivate people to do monstrous things. So can pretending to care about the oppressed while simply appropriating their misery to even more miserable ends.

No. Religion is a philosophy. The Faisal family is supposed to have directly descended from the prophet. As we all know that line of descent has created primarily two versions of Islam. However, each of these have multiple variants. In one respect you are correct, the British claimed this gave Faisal authority but I claim this did not give him authority. Of course, the French dethroned him in Syria (as we know from San Remo, the French got Syria in the deals with Britain. Britain divided it's western middle eastern lands into Iraq (under Faisal) and TransJordan (including Israel and Palestine) under Faisal's brother Abdullah. There Eastern Interests were not solidified until 1925 when the enthroned the first Shah Pahlavi finally ending their disputes there with Russia.

Now the people who lived in these lands were generally poverty stricken and came in two categories, urban dwellers and nomads. Suddenly, the Ottomans (sloppy tax collectors) were replaced by the Hashemit Kings and the Shah (and well organized Tax collectors). Except in Syria where the poorly organized French lost control to popular uprising. Starting many years of intrigue in Syrian politics.

Of course we know how Mr. Churchill showed up and began policing all this land for the Hashemites with police bombing. A village doesn't pay taxes or gets out of line, send a few planes with bombs and straighten them out. It is cheaper than sending a standing force as was the norm in India before planes.

Little of the politics it self has to do with religion. However, religion, when used effectively, can get people to accept an uneven distribution of wealth. The obvious is the back fire in Iran. The second Shah, the American Shah, began to creatd a broader wealthy class in his country. Note, he was not really creating much of a Middle class but a broader more diverse and Western Educated upper class (as the Saudi King was doing at the time as well). The Ayatollah's got pissed. The Shah got excessive in the way say the Marco's did in the Philippines. His secret police were notorious and all his spare cash was spent buying guns and jewels for the throne. Revolution came and in the void Theocracy was established. As a result, there are more American's of Iranian descent than any other country in the Middle East.

You can have your opinions I suppose.

The Balfour Declaration in 1917 officially gave Zionists the right to an independent state in what was then the recently defeated Ottoman Empire. King Abdullah accepted the Kingdom of Trans-Jordan (including the Holy Land) as a British vassal knowing this. Zionists slowly flowed into the region with a huge bump in new Zionists with the rise of the Third Reich. Britain only restricted the flow of Jewish immigrants in acts of appeasement to Adolf Hitler (by the way, I consider the Nazi government a theocracy as well).

So, officially Israel had the "right" to exist since 1917 given by the same "authority" that created the other new states in the region.

Len, here is a question, is it ok for a Christian to proselytize?