Craven de Kere wrote:
Quote:If you claim that the mid east conflict is due to religion (as opposed to territory) it would be an inspid claim.
I speak of vapidity, not palate.
All right Craven, as you seem to insist on wordage, I will assume that you are alluding to "without merit." In your view, the mid east conflict is due to territorial claims, not religion.
Most wars and large or long conflicts between peoples tend to be about religion or values, which, for the purposes of brevity, I will use the term philosophy.
They are not about territory per se, they are about differing philosophies.
From the Peloponnesian Wars to the Crusades to the American Revolution to World War II, the conflicts were fought over different philosophies.
A useful example would be the Islamic conquests:
Muhammed had succeeded in uniting the Bedouin tribes of Arabia, ridding them of their pagan ways, and utilising their traditions of raiding and looting into political conquest.
Following the death of Muhammed, during the reign of Abu Bakr, the first Caliph after Muhammed, most of the Bedouin tribes reverted to their old ways of intertribal warfare, and Abu Bakr had to wage war against them in order to return them to the flock.
This was known as the redda wars (wars of apostasy).
After shortly succeeding in subduing the insurgency the reconverted tribes started raiding southern Iraqi cities which were under the control of the Sassanids. Many of these incursions brought great material gains for the tribal warriors, and since these cities were inhabited by older tribes (such as the Manadhira) which had settled earlier in Iraq, the warriors were met with little resistance, which encouraged them to raid and conquer more land up north along the Euphrates until they had beseiged Damascus.
During the reign of Omar, the second Caliph, the Arab tribes had already beaten the two major empires in the region and occupied Iraq, Syria, Egypt, and Persia.
This Jihad was less motivated by Islamic religious fervour than by the ancient Bedouin traditions and philosophy of raiding and warfare.
Muslims were not supposed to raid fellow Muslims, but raiding was the Arab/Bedouin way of life and therefore Islam spread quickly as the tribes had to find new territories to practice their way of life.
Many often assume that Islamic conversion was forced by the sword, however the invading Arab tribes didn't care less if the conquered populations converted or not, they were just doing what they were good at - raiding and looting.
Now, the same could be said of American Manifest Destiny or European worldwide colonization. The motivation for conquest is and was based on a philosophy of life, not on the acquisition of territory.
The Palestinian/Israeli conflict is not based on territory. It is based on two diametrically opposed philosophies.
This idea is espoused by both the Palestinians and the Israelis.
The following article is about the Arab/Muslim philosophy of Death.
May 24, 2004, 8:46 a.m.
Dealing in DeathCraven de Kere wrote:
Quote:I am confident that my grasp of both the conflict's history and the intricacies of the political situation that currently exists far exceeds yours.
This, however, is a silly penis to measure and if you are done addressing points I did not make perhaps you would be so good as to address the ones that I did.
Have I sufficiently addressed your point regarding the idea that the Israeli Palestinian conflict is about territory?
It is not about territory.
It is about life and death.
And the fence represents life for Israelis.
