Religious Wars?

Sinkiang!

Don't forget the Christians war on science.

1 + 1 = 3!

The callousness towards the sufferings of Muslims, displayed by Krauthammer as well as people I know personally, is what bothers me the most. I've often heard sentiments like: "I'm just glad the Sunnis and Shiites are busy killing each other", as if these are not real human beings.

I agree that Krauthammer is a terrible columnist, but the problem with him is that, although his writings are poorly reasoned and motivated by hate, he is also a talented polemicist.

No one ever gives the Tamils the credit they deserve for inventing suicide bombing. Colombo, Sri Lanka, is not a major media market.

(Note: "Colombo" is an indigenous word, not derived from "Columbus".)

I think the Yugoslav wars were primarily ethnic in nature, not religious - not to say there weren't religious differences between the sides, just that the religious differences were secondary to the ethnic differences.

A better example for Matthew, I think, would be the Northern Ireland conflict.

Al, the primary reason for differences between Croats and Serbs is that Croats were Catholic while Serbs were Orthodox. The language is otherwise essentially the same, they are both "southern slavs", etc. There are other differences as well (Serbs spent longer as part of the Ottoman Empire, etc.) but the religious differences were and are important. Many in Russia (though not the official propoganda) see the war in Chechnya as a religious war too, w/ new "saints" comming from killed Russian soldiers and so on.

"the inconvenient truth is that after centuries of religious wars, Christendom long ago gave it up." - The Hammer of the Krauts

As a left-wing moonbat Jew, I propose the following punishment for right-wing Jews who have forgotten about our history (it weren't Muslims killing us in the Crusades, the Pograms and the Holocaust): they should be forced to actually live under the Christian theocracy which they seem so happy to allow to be foisted on the rest of us figuring that philosophers like them would be exempt (Strauss must be rolling in his grave seeing how these people have mis-appropriated him) ... or they should be forced to join the IDF as it wages proxy wars for a Christian theocracy eager to bring on armeggedon.

Our media and public needs to stop taking people like the Hammer of the Krauts seriously until such time as they are willing to actually take the medicine they prescribe to others. And that, of course, goes double for the free-trade nitwits who prescribe an austerity for others from which they, or those who've hired them to be nitwits, profit.

As much as I shudder to agree with Al on anything, he's right on when he mentions Northern Ireland. It's an example that rings much more relevant to American ears.

Sinkiang? Is Matthew opposed to using pinyin? I guess Matthew must either be a Kuomintang supporter refusing to recognize the Red ChiCom government or he fell into a time warp where its 1957. Most people write Xinjiang these days. But if you really wanted to show your opposition to China you could call it by its real name - Eastern Turkestan.

There are also plenty of historically Christian countries where the Christian populations are to this day kept subject to Muslims - Egypt, Syria, Southern Anatolia, and Constantinople. On the whole the Muslims have taken a lot more Christian territory than they had to give back, maybe they should calm down and look at the big picture.

i came to comment about northern ireland as well, so seconds to al and myca. i mean, for crissake, the "troubles" were all about protestant vs. catholic.

Last I checked Turkey is about 98% Muslim. And a secular republic. And chock full of Efes, raki, and hot Turkish women.

I should be so lucky as to be subjected to that.

"Muslims aren't mistaken in their belief that an awful lot of Muslim-populated land (the West Bank, Chechnya, Kashmir, Sinkiang, etc.) seems to be in the hands of non-Muslim states against the will of the local population."

While it's true that Muslims tend to prefer shar'ia to secular law, and so they tend toward separatism, it's just very strange to read a liberal defense of theocracy. One might almost call it hypocrisy.

Why must a secular state cede territory to a religious group — including Muslims? Why can't Muslims just live amongst other religions in tolerance? Hmmm, maybe because mainstream Islamic theology itself claims universal sovereignly over religious expression, going so far as to enforce the dhimmi and shar'ia on unwilling populations.

“Muslim-populated land” does exist, but the absence of theocratic government in such a land is no great harm to anyone. So, no one is claiming that “this stuff happens for no reason” but rather that the reasons offered are wrong. Belying your view, the reasons Muslims do give us are invariably atavistic. For example, Hamas claims the West Bank as a waqf, consecrated by allah for the Muslim people alone; therefore, a priori, they reject any political settlement over the disputed land, recognizing jihad as the only method of liberation. Simply read the Hamas Covenant to verify this point.

Again, it’s very odd to see liberals defend theocratic totalitarianism.

"This is not to deny the obvious fact that there's a seemingly greater quantity of Islamic-inflected violence in the world. On the other hand, Muslims aren't mistaken in their belief that an awful lot of Muslim-populated land (the West Bank, Chechnya, Kashmir, Sinkiang, etc.) seems to be in the hands of non-Muslim states against the will of the local population."

This may not be a denial, but it is a dodge. What about the violence that sprang from the controversey over the Danish cartoons? Or how about the most recent bit of violence following The Pope's "Catholics rule! Muslims suxor!1" speech? Which Western imperialist travesty was resonsible for that?

Not that I'm making a case for the moral superiority of Xtianity, in either it's Catholic or Protestant forms, by comparison. I personally think a truly liberal & secular world rejects such things. But people really need to stop treating Islam so gingerly.

Krauthammer isn't wrong about the irony of some Islamics responding with violence to a claim that Islam is violent. But it's such a gross generalization that it's meaningless. I'm sure that most Islamics are nonviolent; I'm equally sure that all three monotheistic religions have violent factions in them. It surely wouldn't surprise Krauthammer to see militant Christian anti-abortion groups respond violently to sharply critical remarks, so he shouldn't act "shocked, shocked" and smug when some militant Islamics respond violently to sharply critical remarks (not that that excuses the violent behavior in any way whatsoever).

Let me add, though, contra the example of Northern Ireland, it seems to me that while we can still find examples of violent extremists in all relgions, that faction seems to be much more prevalent in Islam than in other religions. So while I agree with, e.g., Daniel Esq. in general, the point that should be made is that religious extremist violence is much more of a problem in Islam than in any other religion. Krauthammer's column is a bit too nuanceless (is that a word?) in this regard. The focus ought to be on the extent of Islamic violence (which is much greater than the extent of Christian violence, or Buddhist violence, or what have you), not on positing an incorrect dichotomy between violent islam and peaceful other religions.

"Muslims aren't mistaken in their belief that an awful lot of Muslim-populated land (the West Bank, Chechnya, Kashmir, Sinkiang, etc.) seems to be in the hands of non-Muslim states against the will of the local population."

While it's true that Muslims tend to prefer shar'ia to secular law, and so they tend toward separatism, it's just very strange to read a liberal defense of theocracy. One might almost call it hypocrisy.

Why must a secular state cede territory to a religious group — including Muslims? Why can't Muslims just live amongst other religions in tolerance? Hmmm, maybe because mainstream Islamic theology itself claims universal sovereignly over religious expression, going so far as to enforce the dhimmi and shar'ia on unwilling populations.

“Muslim-populated land” does exist, but the absence of theocratic government in such a land is no great harm to anyone. - Jeff Younger

Indeed, this liberal tends to take an almost Rawlsian approach to such things: assuming Muslims benefit under Shar'ia but non-Moslems would loose a lot going from a truly secular and free society to a more theocratic one, this liberal tends to take, e.g., the Indian side on the Kashmir issue.

In the other cases, however, the choice is not between the land in question changing hands from being free and secular to being under a Muslim theocracy. Xinjiang is under the control of the communist Chinese government, which is hardly famous for its toleration of faiths other than whatever has replaced Communist Atheism as its official "religion". Chechnya is similar under the control of Russia, which is hardly famous for its religious tolerance, whether under the Czars or the Communists and it's looking toward its Czarist past as of late. And the West Bank is occupied territory. So it isn't as if the change in these cases will be from being a free secular society in which Muslims are, among others, free to practice their faith in their homes and mosques but not able to establish the theocracy that some might want (to say all would want such a theocracy is a bigoted mis-estimation of the Muslim world) to a society privaleging the Muslim faith, but rather the change would be one of liberation from non-liberal rule, even if certain elements of the society proposed are also illiberal.

So the positions of us liberals in regards to such changes are not so contradictory with liberalism as it may seem at first glance as there is a large component of a desire for freedom in the movements that would seem to some as pro-theocratic.

Daniel wrote: "But it's such a gross generalization that it's meaningless. I'm sure that most Islamics are nonviolent; I'm equally sure that all three monotheistic religions have violent factions in them. It surely wouldn't surprise Krauthammer to see militant Christian anti-abortion groups respond violently to sharply critical remarks, so he shouldn't act "shocked, shocked" and smug when some militant Islamics respond violently to sharply critical remarks (not that that excuses the violent behavior in any way whatsoever)."

It's not clear at all that "most Islamics are nonviolent." Indeed, there is widespread support for the violent interpretation of jihad and widespread support for terrorism. Hate demonstrations attract millions, with chants of "Death to ..." fill in the Devil du jour. By-and-large, Mulims support al-Qeida, Islamic Jihad, and Hamas in huge numbers. Check out the Pew Center polls for verification.

Incidentally, we neutered the abortion-bomber groups by explicit racial and religious profiling and aggressive infiltration by FBI agents --- acts that liberals oppose in response to Islamic terrorism. This strange asymmetry shows most clearly the peculiar blind-spot liberals have toward Islamic terrorism.

I know it's a stock point, but it seems yet to have been made explicitly in this discussion:

to what extent does violent Islamicism reflect the fact that in much of the Islamic world, Islam is the only viable vehicle through which to launch a response against oppression? Is the violence we see not so much a function of Islam, but a function of the often misplaced, misdirected and sometimes abominable violence that results when "a dream deferred" "explodes", but since the only viable opposition to oppression in the Islamic world is from within Islam, the violence of some such opposition ends up being expressed under the banner of Islam, but this has nothing to do with Islam itself.

DAS wrote: "So it isn't as if the change in these cases will be from being a free secular society in which Muslims are, among others, free to practice their faith in their homes and mosques but not able to establish the theocracy that some might want (to say all would want such a theocracy is a bigoted mis-estimation of the Muslim world) to a society privaleging the Muslim faith, but rather the change would be one of liberation from non-liberal rule, even if certain elements of the society proposed are also illiberal."

Muslims in Chechnya had and have Mosques at which they practice their religion freely. The Chechen rebels themselves say they intend to establish an Iran-style theocracy. The West Bank was re-occupied in response to ongoing terrorist attacks by Muslim groups who publicly state they intend to establish a waqf.

You are quite correct to point out that many of these governments aren't sufficiently liberal; however, in most cases the proposed Islamic governments are just as bad if not worse. I mean, Iran publicly hangs homosexuals as a “public good” — even the Chinese would blush at that these days.

It is inconceivable that a Muslim government could be remotely compatible with Western-style liberal government. It’s easy for liberals to see this when I write “A Christian government is not compatible with liberal government,” but liberals seem unable to see it the same way for a Muslim government. It’s very odd.

DAS wrote: "to what extent does violent Islamicism reflect the fact that in much of the Islamic world, Islam is the only viable vehicle through which to launch a response against oppression?"

Again, this is a peculiar framing of the issue. Islam has been an imperial ideology since its founding. It seems that Islam is the origin of oppression. As a political ideology, Islam rejects religious freedom, freedom of conscience, freedom of speech, freedom of association, and so forth. The actual, observable instances of Islamic societies are nothing short of horrors.

Again, one doesn’t read much liberal commentary along the lines of “to what extent does violent, abortion-clinic-bombing Christianity reflect the fact that in much of the Christian world, fundamentalist Christianity is the only viable vehicle to launch a response against oppression.”

But perhaps this is getting to issue. Do liberals simply take the simplistic West=Bad, Other=Good approach to matters of governance? I hope not.

I don't think the two points being made are mutually exclusive. Right now, its probably true that believers in Islam are more prone to violence and extremism, due to the current state of Islamic culture and belief, than the believers in other religions. Its also true, as Matt says, that believers in Islam are more likely to be living in political conditions that contribute to violence, in ways that are independent of their religious beliefs.

Both factors should be evaluated dispassionately, although I'm not holding my breath.

The trick is better labeling.

When a Christian woman drowns some kids in a bathtub or lake or chucks them off a bridge, she didn't kill in god's name...she's "crazy."

The Muslims need a better P.R. firm.

Not to beat this subject into the ground, but don't forget about the Lord's Resistance Army in Uganda. Those Christian sweethearts have been at it since the 80's, fighting for some bizarre millenarianist state, which I'm sure would be the envy of evangelicals everywhere.

monkyboy wrote: "When a Christian woman drowns some kids in a bathtub or lake or chucks them off a bridge, she didn't kill in god's name...she's "crazy.""

Well, we call Muslim people who do stuff like that crazy, too. And no one's condemning any religion on the basis of criminal activity.

We're discussing organized violence conducted as in war, and recognized Islamic governments that do things like beat 11 year old boys to death in public for eating candy during the Ramadan fast.

The difference is not on of PR, but one of essential quality.

You're joking aren't you, Jeff?

Congress and Bushie just spent the last few weeks debating how to get all the C.I.A. officers and military personnel who beat their helpless Muslims captives to death off the hook legally...and the people in the Pentagon and the administration who authorized them.

With the proper P.R. spin of course...

They had to make it look like it had something to do with the current Christian "war" on Muslims...

Again, one doesn’t read much liberal commentary along the lines of “to what extent does violent, abortion-clinic-bombing Christianity reflect the fact that in much of the Christian world, fundamentalist Christianity is the only viable vehicle to launch a response against oppression.”

Wasn't that the point of "What's the matter with Kansas?" I can't speak for all liberals, but I've often thought social conservatism was an (irrational) reaction to economic deprivation.

I am curious about what kind of racial profiling was employed against pro-life terrorists. Also, given that a lot of the terrorists discovered in America post-9/11 have been pseudo-Muslims like the Seas of David, I wonder if racial and religious profiling might actually hurt rather than help us.

Consumatopia (great name!) wrote: "I've often thought social conservatism was an (irrational) reaction to economic deprivation."

Perhaps. One can see the longing for the "good old days" as an exemple of the tendency. However, if you are really interested in what social conservatism is about(and making claims of irrationality does not make it appear so), I'd suggest Scruton's The Meaning of Conservatism. I'm not a social conservative, so I'm unwilling to make their case.

The FBI profiled abortion-bombers as white, male, 30-50, Christian, Protestant, fundamentalist.

The arguments aginst profiling often "wonder if racial and religious profiling might actually hurt rather than help us." But no one is claiming it ought to be the only tool available, but rather it should one of the tools available to intelligence and law enforcement at their discretion.

Re; What were the Serbs and the Croats doing in the Krajina if not engaging in a bit of the old "sectarian violence?

Um, how about "nationalistic violence"? I very much doubt that any of the principle actors in the Balkan troubles were theologically motivated, or even theologically literate. The uissues at stake involved who was going to control waht territory not how people prayed. And behind the conflict lay not the medieval split of East and West (in Europe and Christendom) that the media harped on, but an event far more recent, the appalling geneocide perpetrated by the Croatian fascists against the Serbs in WWII.

Jeff: if the Muslim world wants to find a way to modernity that involves an element of theocracy, then let them do it. Not every country has to be exactly like the United States. It's not our business to run around the world imposing the bill of rights. The road to modernization took different forms in different Western nations as well, and involved substantial violence along the way. Get out of the way and let Muslim peoples have sovereignty over their own territory. It is quite understandable that our attempt to deny them that, even if it is covered over with the fig leaf of "universal democracy" and "for your own good" has led to bitterness and violence. Most likely, the final result of a modernization process in those nations will mix democratic and individualist institutions with religious ones in a way that suits the populace, just like England mixed state-established religion, a monarchy, and parliament in its own growth to modernity.

Also, Israel is a religiously based state every bit as much as Islamic states are, although being wealthier and more developed it is more pleasant in its internal governance (especially if you are Jewish). "Israeli Arabs" are a tolerated religious minority who do not get full civil rights, just as Christians or Jews might be in an Islamic state. Voting and civil rights are systematically denied to non-Jews in cases where this might actually lead to a voting majority of non-Jewish citizens. If you acknowledge Israel's right to be a religiously based state, you should acknowledge the rights of other states as well.

MQ wrote: "If you acknowledge Israel's right to be a religiously based state, you should acknowledge the rights of other states as well."

My criticism isn;t actually directed at religious states. I take it as axiomatic that liberals detest unfree states, especially of the religious variety. My criticism is directed at the odd positions of liberals on Islam and Islamic terrorism.

You are quite incorrect on the status of Israeli Arabs. The only legal difference at Israeli law between Arab citizens and Jewish citizens has to do with obligations not rights. Jews are subject to compulsory military service; Arab citizens are not. (Although, to their credit the Druse demand that their young men serve.) Arab Israelis have full voting rights. Indeed, there are many Arab members of the Knesset.

No good is done by making things up.

Unfree, Jeff?

How many people adjust their behavior to Christian tastes in America to avoid government punishment?

Showing a female breast on American TV results in large fines, but you can show all the violence you want....even in kids shows.

Can't smoke dope, or you can be sent to jail for up to 30 years, but drink all the booze you want.

Etc.

Jeff wrote: "It's not clear at all that "most Islamics are nonviolent." Indeed, there is widespread support for the violent interpretation of jihad and widespread support for terrorism. Hate demonstrations attract millions, with chants of "Death to ..." fill in the Devil du jour. By-and-large, Mulims support al-Qeida, Islamic Jihad, and Hamas in huge numbers. Check out the Pew Center polls for verification."

A link to the Pew Center's report, called "The Great Divide: How Westerners and Muslims View Each Other," is below.

http://pewglobal.org/reports/display.php?PageID=833

Among other things, the survey says:

"By and large, the Muslim publics surveyed also express fairly extensive concern over Islamic extremism."

"As for al Qaeda and groups like it, opinion is mixed in the Muslim world about how much support they attract."

"[S]upport for the al Qaeda leader [bin Laden] has eroded in several Muslim countries in recent years."

Admittedly, it appears that the survey intentionally oversampled European Muslims, as the surveyors apparently believe that "the views of Europe's Muslims represent a middle ground between the way Western publics and Muslims in the Middle East and Asia view each other." Also, you can find other, more troubling, results in this survey, e.g., that Muslim anti-Semitism remains shockingly high in Muslim nations. The point is that -- as with many topics -- there's a mixed bag of attitudes, subject to many interpretations.

Daniel wrote: "Also, you can find other, more troubling, results in this survey, e.g., that Muslim anti-Semitism remains shockingly high in Muslim nations. The point is that -- as with many topics -- there's a mixed bag of attitudes, subject to many interpretations."

Though it seems that interpretations that lead to "most Islamics are nonviolent" is untenable.

"Israel is a religiously based state every bit as much as Islamic states are."

You really need to learn something about what you're talking about. The head of state in Iran - to take the clearest example - is the "Supreme Leader," Ayatollah Khamenei, who was elected (for life) by the 86 member Council of Experts - all ayatollahs. All candidates for the legislature and for president must be approved by the Guardian Council, consisting of 6 mullahs appointed by the Supreme Leader and 6 lawyers appointed by the head of the judiciary, who is himself appointed by the Supreme Leader. The Supreme Leader is the commander in chief of the military. When there are conflicts between the legislature and the Guardian Council they are resolved by the Expediency Council, whose members are appointed by - SURPRISE! - the Supreme Leader. The judicial system enforces Shi'a Islamic law. This means, for example, that gay people are executed.

Israel is a western parliamentary democracy with no religious qualifications on voting or office. Its law is derived from English law. Jewish religious law is not the basis for the national law. Rabbis have no special status in Israeli law or in the political system. No head of state or of government has ever been a rabbi, and most have been only partially religiously observant or entirely non-observant. Many of the founders - Ben Gurion, for example - were secular and non-observant. Israel is a Jewish state- but many Israelis and many of the founders viewed Jewishness as a national identity, so that Israel's Jewishness is on a par with Italy's Italian-ness and Ireland's Irishness.

"Voting and civil rights are systematically denied to non-Jews in cases where this might actually lead to a voting majority of non-Jewish citizens."

What can this sentence possibly mean? Even if Israel annexed the West Bank and Gaza, the majority of potential voters would still be Jews. Arabs, Druse and other non-Jews within Israel's borders have the right to vote. Has anyone heard the Palestinians outside Israel's borders clamoring to be made Israeli citizens? The reverse is true- for example,Arab residents of East Jerusalem, which has been annexed to Israel, have the right to apply for Israeli citizenship but choose not to do so, because they do not recognize the annexation.

JR,

The government of Israel's budget is close to 50% of Israel's GDP, which, technically, makes Israel a communist theocracy....rather unique.

Re: The primary reason for differences between Croats and Serbs is that Croats were Catholic while Serbs were Orthodox

"Were" in the operative word here.
Religious belief and practice in the former Yugoslavia is about what it is in the rest of Europe: which is to say, not much.
Serbs and Croats oerceive themselves as very different people and the fact that they share a language is irrelevant. Not all people speaking the same language are the same ethnicity (see: Americans and Anglo-Canadians; Flemish Belgians and their Dutch neighbors; Mexicans and Argentians; etc. and etc.)

Re: Though it seems that interpretations that lead to "most Islamics are nonviolent" is untenable.

Given the fact that violent actions are committed only the tiniest fraction of all Muslims, I think the statement that Most Muslims are non-violent is quite tenable. There are a billion Muslism or so. When you can convincingly cite example of 500,000,000 of them committing acts of violence (or at least 50% of the able-bodied adults) get back to us.

Jeff, as far as my statement that social conservatism is irrational, I was basing that more on my rememberances of my life as a former social conservative than any analysis of social conservative thought. And therefore I may be incorrect, buy I just wanted to point out the symmetry: I view both Christian and Islamic fanatics in the same frame, that of frustrated and confused people taking a completely counter-productive approach to solving their problems. I may be incorrect, but I'm not anti-West.

By "what kind" of profiling, I wasn't interested so much in the particular profile, but in what would have been done with that profile. People talking about profiling today in an Islamic context seem to be thinking of airport screening, where profiling seems vindictive and counterproductive to me. Would people fitting the profile you describe be publicly singled out like that?

Obviously you're under no obligation to have this information on hand, I just thought maybe you had some particular incident or source in mind. Because I am genuinely curious--infiltration is a useful component of counter-terrorism, yet it's been seriously misused in the past. I wonder if there is someway to separate "good" infiltration from "bad" infiltration, or do we simply have to decide which frighten us more, the terrorists or the spooks?

The Northern Irish weren't fighting over fine points of Christian theology. Instead, they were two endogamous (in-marrying) extended families fighting over who should rule the Six Counties: the former owners or the newer owners.

The role of religion in this was to keep the two families separate by making marriage between members of the different religions rare.

This same perspective is useful in thinking about many other conflicts, including many involving Muslims. Only rarely does theology directly drive conflict in the same way it did in Europe during the 16th and 17th Century Wars of Religion. Perhaps Osama bin Laden is motivated by theology, but he is (fortunately) unusual.

Jeff: First of all, it is obvious that the main point here is the several million Arabs who under Israeli sovereignty who have no civil rights at all, thanks to their ethnic and religious background. Your attempt to change the subject is telling. Second, I am hardly making things up. You should visit Israel sometime and get to know a few Israeli Arabs. Israeli Arabs are window dressing in a system that is run for and by Jews. Granted, there is no severe oppression and not much written into law, but the differences in income, occupation, housing, and opportunity are clear. The military service difference is not meaningless either, as this is key to opportunity in Israeli society.

As it happens, I think Israel's policies as an ethnic state are in many ways justifiable, but I also don't want to use silly bromides about rights as excuses for violating the sovereignty of other nations and peoples.

JR: I think you're the one who needs to learn what he's talking about. By some counts, giving voting rights in Israel to Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank would result in a non-Jewish majority in Israel right now, today. Look up Arnon Sofer's numbers, he's at the University of Haifa. Even those who dispute these counts acknowledge that differentials in birthrates mean that within a decade or so there will be more non-Jews under Israeli control than Jews. Israel maintains a Jewish voting majority by denying voting rights to the great majority of the non-Jewish population under its control. To say that such a nation is a pure "democracy" is just propaganda, and it will become increasingly obvious as such as the Palestinian population grows. This is why it is crucial for Israel to find some way to get rid of its Palestinian population, and why many Palestinians feel they have the winning hand in the region over the long run.

Whether a nation is religiously controlled does not depend on whether it choose to call its leader "El Supremo the High Priest" or the prime minister. It depends on how power structures are managed in that society. Israel manages power to keep the Jewish population in firm control, and provide Jews worldwide with a secure homeland. Indeed this is Israel's *stated purpose for existence*, and the reason why Jews like me support it, so I don't understand why any of my statements are controversial.

Jewish religious law is not the basis for the national law. Rabbis have no special status in Israeli law or in the political system. No head of state or of government has ever been a rabbi, and most have been only partially religiously observant or entirely non-observant.

Ummm ... yes and no. Speaking as a Liberal Jew (in particular a Conservative Jew -- we Jews are odd: "Conservative Jews", who are not to be confused with Jewish conservatives, are a subset of Liberal Jews, i.e. religious, not necessarily political liberals), the government of Israel, while not theocratic per se, does regulate religion in such a way as to discriminate against Liberal Jews allowing Traditional Orthodoxy to be the only really established religious form of expression. The net result is that if you want to be religiously Jewish (rather than just merely Jewish as a matter of "race", a definition shared by Zionists, Nazis and few others), it's much easier to be Traditionally Orthodox, and thus, those who are unwilling to commit to that level of observance are driven to secularism.

Thus if Israel is indeed a "theocracy" it is maybe the only theocracy which would rather its citizens be secular than be partially religious and the only theocracy that actively discourages religiosity among its inhabitants. Who says we Jews aren't a unique people? ;)

L'Shana Tova (Happy New Year) everybody!

I am sorry to disillusion you all but the conflict in Northern Ireland is ethnic. It is Irish v Brits including Scots. It dates back to the colonisation of Ireland by the British starting in the sixteenth century.

Many people do not understand the significance of the Irish nationalists when the say "Brits out". That it includes the Ulster Protestants.

My criticism is directed at the odd positions of liberals on Islam and Islamic terrorism. - Jeff Younger

What odd positions? I reckon some liberals have odd positions, but many liberals rather detest Islamic terrorism just as we detest any other form of terrorism ... and we feel people should have as much right to be Islam as any other religion. How is this odd?

The line between religion and ethnicity is a lot less clear than people try to make it. A lot of religious doctrine is about regulating the life of a particular community a particular way, and identification with that community becomes identification with the religion. Shared religious observation is one way of defining a community, ethnicity another often overlapping one, communities conflict because they don't trust other communities. It's pretty rare to find people killing each other over abstract theological debates, if you look deeper there is usually something else going on.

The interesting thing is that political Islam as we know it only read dates back to the 1920's at the earliest with al-Banna and the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. For years, in countries like Egypt and Iran Marxism and socialism were stronger ideologies than political Islam. Talk of either one could get your kicked out of universities in Kemalist Turkey. Many of the ideological leaders of Uyghur nationalism in Xinjiang are strongly secular bordering on agnosticism, but see Islam as part of Uyghur culture and identity (similar to how Leo Strauss could be both an athiest but culturally Jewish and a political Zionist). The Uyghur Islamic terrorist groups simply get more press than the other figure because 1) not many Westerners know anything about Xinjiang 2) US condemnation of Uyghur terrorist groups - who seem to act rarely, if at all - allows Bush to pretend that China is a viable partner in the war on terror to aid good relations (which may just be smart politics).

Mossadegh was a secular right-wing nationalist royalist aristocrat before we overthrew him, installed the Shah who was seen as an American puppet. As Kishore Mahbubani (I forget the correst spelling) pointed out now to long ago, the whole idea of Islam as this vast political force that could actually be a threat to anyone and tapped into sentiments from Morocco to Indonesia only dates to about the late 1970's, with the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the Iranian Revolution, and later the assassination of Sadat. We intentionally helped political Islam to become a viable force in international politics by helping Pakistan act as a conduit for international jihad. The Iranian revolutionaries were diverse in outlook, including liberals and Marxists among their members. Khomeini rose at first on nationalist, not Islamic, waves. He was also seen as the guy who had the best organizational skills at maintaining the revolution and the factions wrongly believed he would share power in a heterodox polity. The PLO was explicitly Marxist, which seems to be often overlooked. The Israeli government supported Hamas for years to divide the Palestinians and because political Islam wasn't seen as much of a threat as, say, an Arab group that was socialist (much like Hussein and Nasser).

The Algerian Revolution wasn't about shari'a, but about independence. The Algerian polity since then has resembled more communist China than Iran today because socialism played a bigger role. Support for political Islamic candidates like Ahmedinijad (sp?) and Hamas have more to due with their perceived immunity to monetary corruption (stealing from the taxpayers and the treasury) than religions. Indonesians have rejected shari'a-loving candidates ever since democracy was implemented. The same goes for Bangladesh. These are two of the largest Muslim countries in the world. The war between Chechnya and Russia has been going on for about 200 years and shari'a has only popped up as a topic in the past few years. The Basques were severly abused by Franco during his mixture of Catholicism and fascism ran Spain. One doesn't need a want for shari'a to want to separate from that.

If you think about it, the only polity today from which Muslims are trying to separate from where they have experienced any political freedom since 1945 is India, where the Indian actions in Kashmir have been brutal and Kashmiris have seen their land turned into a pawn of Indo-Pakistani relations. The Arabs who can vote in Israel aren't the ones living in the Occupied Terroritories, where they have never had any rights to vote for members of the Knesset. With these facts in mind, it is not accurate to say that Muslims prefer to live under shari'a than under liberal governments and that many of these conflicts were about shari'a. It would be just as accurate to say that Muslims (at least since WWII) prefer to live under secular socialism (not that socialism should be desirable).

The religion whose members live under conditions that provoke religious terrorism - occupation and the failure of secular governments - seem to be Islam. Similarly, Tamil Hindus in Tamil Nadu don't live under such conditions, but Tamil Hindus in Sri Lanka long lived under such conditions once Sinhalese Buddhist socialists-nationalists who were angry at the rich Tamil Hindus started to oppress them. The Tamil Tigers use suicide bombing as a tactic more than anyone else.

26 + 6 = 1

Reality,

I disagree that "political" Islam statered in the 1920s. A passage from T.E. Lawrence's The Seven Pillars of Wisdom about his time in Arabia in the 1910s:

The Wahabis, followers on a fanatical Moslem heresy, had imposed their strict rules on easy and civilized Kasim. In Kasim there was but little coffee-hospitality, much prayer and fasting, no tobacco, no artistic dalliance with women, no silk clothes, no gold and silver head-ropes or ornaments. Everything was forcibly pious or forcibly puritanical.

It was a natural phenomenon, this periodic rise at intervals of little more than a century, of ascetic creeds in Central Arabia. Always the votaries found their neighbors' beliefs cluttered with inessential things, which became impious in the hot imagination of their preachers. Again and again they had arisen, had taken possession, soul and body, of the tribes, and had dashed themselves to pieces on the urban Semites, merchants and concupiscent men of the world. About their comfortable possessions the new creeds ebbed and flowed like the tides or the changing seasons, each movement with the seeds of early death in its excess of rightness.

Same stuff, new century...

ARGH. It's not the religion that is creating the violence in these areas - its socio-economic issues and meddling by the "Great Powers". This myth that religious fervor makes people into suicide bombers and not socio-economic factors is pure Orientalist nonsense.

Europe and the US have had an unprecedented half century of relative peace and HIGH levels of prosperity while we fought our proxy wars in the Mid-East, South America, Africa and parts of Asia instead of on our own lands. We (meaning both the US/Europe and the Soviets) mucked around in their governments, toppling this one, propping up that one, and interfering in anything that they attempted to do for themselves (for good or for ill). Now we expect people who have been shat on for decades, whose economies are a shambles, and who really only have the US and Europe left to blame for their troubles, to act as if they had also had 50+ years of economic prosperity and relative peace?

I mean, Jesus people, this really isn't that hard to figure out. They don't hate us for our freedoms, they don't blow themselves up because their God has told them to. They hate us because we throw away more food per capita in a year than they even see, let alone get a chance to eat and they blow themselves up because its a better death than the alternatives. This isn't rocket science - its simple human nature. Take away our economic prosperity and throw us into some meaningless wars with other countries where each of them props up their own strongman as our "leader", and each has firepower superior to our own in every way shape and form that we couldn't hope to compete against, and I'd bet that within 2 generations we'd be producing our own suicide bombers. Because there really wouldn't be many other ways to fight back, and fighting for your country/tribe/family is what people do. Especially us Americans - we wouldn't just roll over and let someone occupy our country, even if it meant certain death for ourselves. That would be un-patriotic, wouldn't it?

Again, it’s very odd to see liberals defend theocratic totalitarianism.

Odd, indeed, Jeff. Just not any longer unusual. Common as dirt, actually.

NonyNony,
It is not only rich countries which are the targets of Islamic extremism. The targets who have suffered the most terrorism are generally not very rich (India, Algeria etc). And the terrorism is by people who share very similar views to the people who did 9/11. So, both the "hate us for our freedoms" and "we are rich and they are jealous" lines of argument are insufficient.

As for Yglesias' post, I agree that it is a liberal defense of Islamic theocracy. This is rather like a defence for fascists saying that wanted to be "separate" unto themselves. I make this analogy deliberately because the people who want separatism in some of these places are basically fascists and have no qualms doing essentially what fascists did before. I think also that Sinkiang is different in as much as it is equally an attempt to preserve Uighur cultural identity from extinction by the regime in China. With regards to Kashmir, the case that I am most familiar with, the people(terrorists) asking for separation have also ethnically cleansed the region of non-muslims with the shameful result that Indian citizens have been made refugees in their own country.

Finally, I must point out that the claim that
" Muslims aren't mistaken in their belief that an awful lot of Muslim-populated land (the West Bank, Chechnya, Kashmir, Sinkiang, etc.) seems to be in the hands of non-Muslim states against the will of the local population"

itself is not really justified because no one has asked the majority of muslims in those regions about their opinion on the matter. Furthermore,in Kashmir, where someone has actually come close to asking this question, the answer is by no means clear that separation from the state is the will of the local population,especially when the threat of violence was not a factor that influenced people's decisions. So,even this "belief" is often a fiction concocted in the "muslim world" to foster a sense of persecution among muslims everywhere, and as an outlet for bigotry and violence against non-muslims in many parts of the muslim world.

They had to make it look like it had something to do with the current Christian "war" on Muslims...

I resent that, MonkyBoy. I'm an atheist and it's my war too.

Not to mention Northern Ireland.

Re: ARGH. It's not the religion that is creating the violence in these areas - its socio-economic issues and meddling by the "Great Powers". This myth that religious fervor makes people into suicide bombers and not socio-economic factors is pure Orientalist nonsense.

Sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America, other parts of Asia and Oceana all suffer from grinding poverty, tyrannical oppression, and the meddling of the great powers. Yet we do not see suicide bombers in these regions, although there is no shortage of other horrors. Surely something unqiue to Middle Eastern culture has spawned the suicide bomber.

Re: they blow themselves up because its a better death than the alternatives.

Now that's asinine. The only way death is a better alternative than life is if A) you are already dying of a painful disease or B) you believe that you will be rewarded with a wonderful afterlife. I would suggest that religious belief does indeed play some role. But don't take my word for it; to the extent the Islamic suicidists have left us any explanation for their actions, God's expected blessing has indeed been a big part of the motive. Do these folks the bare respect of listening to what they say about themselves rather than shoe-horning them into some alien, Western ideological paradigm.

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I believe in faith and that when we are born we have our faith already and have to live with it.

Life is short we must live it nice and enjoy and be thankful of what we have.

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