One of things I wish would have gotten more press coverage happened two years ago in the former Yugoslavia. One of the first nations to come to the aid of Bosnian Muslims being interned and killed by Milosevich et. al. was....ISRAEL. Israelis gave massive amounts of aid to Bosnians, the most per capita of ANY NATION ON EARTH. It was really an amazing story -- people who knew all to well the horrors of genocide, offering support to those who were suffering through it -- jews reaching out to muslims, human beings to human beings. But what about when Ariel Sharon and his fundamentalist regime forcefully evicts palestinains from their homes and builds israeli-only settlements in their place...isn't some of what has been going on a heck of lot like what Milosevich did to Bosnia? Sure, there are not internment 'camps', but forcefully manipulating a population to make it more Israeli by throwing Palestinians out of their homes is simply not right. And then America refuses to endorse a condemnation of this sort of thing at the UN conference on racism...and then we wonder why there are a group of people who want to blow us up. Just as disturbing of course are palestinian calls for the 'death' of Israel. But how do we broker peace when we don't even *recognize* Palestine, while we are simultaneously staunch allies of Israel? Isn't it time that the UN really committed to solving this problem? Ome of the keys to middle east peace is that Jerusalem, which is IMO really the main flash point of hostilities, cannot EVER be a political capital. As the most important holy city of the three Abrahamic religions (well, in Islam it is thrid in importance anyway), it must be set aside as an international free city of peaceful religious pilrimage. E gads, I just went off of a grand-canyon of a tangent here. I suppose my main point is that this crap has been going on for too long and we need to deal with history or else history will keep dealing with us. In the past 50 years, judaism has FINALLY gained world acceptace and respect (fringe anti-semites notwithstanding), but isn't it time to afford the same level of respect to Islam? - Guy
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