There are a great many people in the world....mostly unthinking liberals with scant regard for principles who feel compelled to attack Israel but withhold complete moral condemnation from Palestine or Syria. This is a grave injustice
Generally speaking, Israel is far superior ethically to Palestine. Israel has democracy, Syria and Palestine are products of their own stupidity, i.e. No rationality, no democracy, no respect for the rights of others. Israel only disrespects the rights of those who repudiate its right to exist. Does Aside from indignant Arabs who repudiate the right of Israel to exist, Israel does not kill other people. By contrast, Arab fundamentalists will kill foreign 'infidels' with impunity. That is why we don't holiday in the Arab world. Many Arabs of course don't support such extreme views, but they don't have the freedom or courage to repudiate those fundamentalist views either. Their existence is reason enough to avoid making general statements. At the end of the day, people ought to either repudiate values they disagree with, or if they are terrorists, physically extricating yourself from them, and refusing to finance them, even if that means leaving the country.
The interesting element of this argument is of course that we refuse entry to these people when they apply for visas to live in Australia. I personally think we should be helping them preserve justice in their own countries. Instead the US continues to provide the Arab states with legitimacy by propping up the existing regimes.
This is not an attack on Islam. All religions are misguided, along with a great many philosophies. Muslims are as much subject to flawed political systems as the West; none more so perhaps than the Muslims of the southern Philippines island of Mindanao. In fairness however to the Philippines government - Islam seems not too different from Christianity, so is there any compelling reason for political differentiation. Any campaign for self-rule therefore seems to be purely a political game.
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Author
Andrew Sheldon
