Quote from Pabst:
Spectator (Dan), IMO Ivanovich (who's a bright guy) makes the true point. Plus if Israel fails, do you really want to see the U.S. absorbing several million Jewish immigrants? I don't.
Without an Israel that captures their loyalty, Jews would be a far more tolerable bunch, I think. Maybe they could get back to an authentic, non-Zionist Judaism. I do see your point, though; I wouldn't want them coming here (to Australia), either.
I'm stuck between your view of Islamic expansionism and doodoo's. Clearly Islam is on the bloody march in nations thousands of miles from Palestine for reasons that have nothing to do with Israel. Yet at the same time, why are the "decadent" cultures of Northern Europe not singled out for attack like the militaristic allies of Israel?
I'm going to sound like a huge 'liberal' here and suggest that you spend some time around Muslims. I think you'll find that the vast majority of anti-western angst derives from our support for Israel. I live among Muslims every day here (in Macedonia, where I am at the moment, not Australia) and there's nothing in the way of a bloody-minded animosity to speak of. I would dare say the vast majority very much
are those 'moderate Muslims' that liberals assure of us. The thing is, such a 'moderate' Islam can't really be justified in Islamic terms, so it's really just 'lax Islam'.
In my opinion, it's undoubtable that US and Israeli policies are the cause of Muslim fundamentalism far more than anything Muslims themselves believed about their religion before 'fundamentalists' (ie true believers) began to be able to rightly point out to them that look at Palestine, look at Afghanistan, look at Chechnya, look at Bosnia, look at Iraq (see that pattern?) and thus recruit Muslims to their view. But still, even given all that, I think the vast majority would simply prefer to be left the hell alone.
But yes, Muslims are a problem when they live among you. Things can be fine for quite a long time, people can get along, be friends, attend each others' festivals etc, but any incident can ignite passions and boom, there's a huge problem on hand. That's why I think it's best to 'work with' Muslim countries, create conditions conducive to international peace, but, at all costs, keep them out of our countries.
And you're right about the Scandanavian 'decadents'. Western decadance may rile uptight Muslims - like that Egyptian whose name I forget who started the Muslim Brotherhood, who was upset by what he saw in the US - but it's hard to rally support for a global Jihad simply because European women go to the beach topless. Surely you can see that. (Furthermore, I think many of the criticisms of liberal society that Muslims make are entirely valid. Do
you really think a society consumed first, second and last by sex, as we today are, is a healthy society? Doesn't the degradation it has caused worry you at all?)
