Date: Thu, 7 Mar 2002 10:05:17 -0800 (PST)
Subject: HAB: Modernity vs. Premodernity  (Re: samizdat 2/28)


To suggest that "they want another 9-11" is absurd. Please don't allow
the insanity of the middle-east situaiton to allow you to lose your own
sanity.

I'm not big fan of Israel myself, but how can Israel deal 'rationally'
with Palistinian forces that can be so extremely irrational in their
desires/motives? I don't mean this in a derogatory sense towards the
Palestinian people. But we would have to acknowledge that Islamic
religious culture has not adapted to rational, pluralistic
modernization in the way that Jewish and Christian cultures have.

If Israel were to give in to full demands, pullback of borders, etc.
What's to say that the cultivated, passionate desires of a radically
anti-jewish Islamic Palestinian culture will not want more? That they
won't want to eradicate Israel altogether?

What can satisfy a people who's desires are not for modernity?

It seems to me the real problem is that this is a clash between
modernity and premondernity.

We could all use to contemplate the problem this way in a non-partisan
manner.

Regards,

Tom

--- bob scheetz <rscheetz-AT-cboss.com> wrote:
>
> Bush pronounces the "axis of evil",...Sharon responds to Prince
> Abdullah's
> conciliatory gesture with the shredded corpses of hundreds of
> defenseless
> Palestinians,...Ari Fleischer adverts contemptuously on the Clinton
> era
> mid-east initiative. There's no mistaking the Wolfowitz policy
> ascendancy,
> the US/Israeli intention of escalating war with Islam.  These are all
> actions manifestly calculated to produce optimal street rage from
> Morocco to
> Jakarta, raise the popular stature of OBL,... to the end of provoking
> more
> "terrorism", a much needed 'nother casus belli.  Apparently the Danny
> Pearl
> incident was not large enuf, or inconveniently situated, or tied to
> the
> already devastated Taliban, ...; they want another 9-11.
> Let us earnestly hope they are frustrated, ...and speak out, that
> perhaps
> for once this trap should remain un-sprung.



====Tom McDonald  CONTACT INFO:
WEBSITE:  http://www.ThomasMcDonald.com
EMAIL:  mcdonald928-AT-yahoo.com
INSTANT MESSENGER:  "omhats" on AOL & MSN, "mcdonald928" on Yahoo

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