[ilbegone]

Originally Posted by Twoller

The important thing to remember about Judaism and the Jewish people is that never in ancient history of Jews and Judaism have Jews ever sought to impose their beliefs on anybody else. And nowhere in the scripture or teachings of Judaism is it ever suggested that anyone else besides Jews was obligated to the beliefs of Judaism and that Jews were in no way obligated to advance the understanding or adoption of Jewish belief to anyone else. And being a Jew is a matter of family. According to Jewish belief, only the descendents of Jews are the Jews of Jewish belief. Others may convert to Jewish belief, but this fundamental belief about who is a Jew is one of the beliefs that rationally must be included in that conversion.

As a matter of religion or scripture or teachings, nobody is under threat of submission to Jews or Jewish believers. Contrast this with Islam or Catholicism which both have a rich history of not only violently subjegating other peoples to their beliefs, but violently policing their own believers for lapses or discretions, imagined or otherwise. And of course they reserve their most frenzied violence against Jews themselves. This is especially ironic considering that both these religions claim the God of Israel as their own. They claim that Jews are evil aggressors against these new claimed beliefs about their God. They advance the weirdest and most odious of lies against them.

If you are a citizen of these United States of America, then you disavow loyalty to any other country. But the US cannot dictate the citizenship policy of other countries. If they want to allow citizenship for other people who claim citizenship in some other country, then our only response can be to remind our citizens their obligation if they are to be citizens at all. When we mint new citizens, they take an oath to disavow loyalty anywhere else. We are serious about this oath and subject our citizens to laws governing these loyalties. That is enough, I think until somebody can think of a better way of handling this.

I'm tired, I'll make it short.

Keeping separate the ancient from the modern, you haven't read much of the Old Testament, have you. Lots of massacring of Canaanites, and all the rest - including execution by stoning and much of what is currently claimed of Islam.

As I've stated before, genetically Palestinians and Israelis are very closely related, and the current hostilities are essentially a family fight over the inheritance which is thousands of years old. Way before our time, and the religious issues are merely a sideshow in my view.

You are correct that historically Jews haven't pushed their beliefs on others, but Pre AD 70 they weren't exactly welcoming of those outside of their closed fold either.