The continuation of my Israel experience thread

[Pannonian]

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On the subject of academics or scholars. I think that there has been much attention and adoration for Islam, especially from historians in the light of the scientific prowess made in the Islamic world between 750 and 1250, in a time commonly defined as the “Islamic Golden Age”. Whether this movement was “Islamic” in nature is debatable; however, the position that Muslim scholars simply copied everything from Greek, Chinese, Indian or Persian sources is absolutely incorrect.

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On that subject, I think I can begin the understand why people sympathise with Islamist, even extremist Islamist movements; they're opposed to the United States. They're underdogs, and people have a tendency to sympathise with underdogs. Simple critical analysis of radical Islamist movements would automatically dispell the idea that they (Muslim radicals) accept or even tolerate the “disbelief” of western, non-Muslim pro-Palestinian political activists; they're a tool to be used today, an enemy to be fought tomorrow. And the ignorance or denial of this simple fact is what, in my opinion, is one of the worst possible hypocricies; to be so extreme in your dislike of U.S. interventionism or foreign policy to willingly sympathise with violent and radical organisations and voice anti-Jewish sentiment while people who survived the Holocaust are still alive is unacceptable.

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I would like everyone to stop thinking about this as a religious issue (and I blame Hamas and the Christian neo-conservative pro-Palestinian lobby equally in this case), but as an issue concerning people. Edward Said, probably the greatest supporter of Palestinian rights in the 20th century, was a Christian. The Druze who fight in the IDF and have supported Israel since 1948 are a Shi‘ite splinter group (but you shouldn't mention that to them, they'll kill you).

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Personally, I'm Islamophilic in terms of its place in history as the most advanced and progressive of its time, and a precursor of the European liberal democracies which I love. However, its modern form has an unhealthy number of anti-progressivists, with AFAICS probably by some distance the largest proportion of self-identified followers who can be accurately described as barbaric. Those of that ilk who seek to do harm to the general population of my country, like that hook handed cleric, would cause me no tears if they were deported as he was. However, it still doesn't excuse the Israelis, as Fragony seeks to do, from the fundamentally secular issue of annexing another country. That's what they're doing in the West Bank, and we should recognise that that's what they're doing, rather than pretend that it's not happening, or try to give it another name.