Sticky

Just to clarify a bit. While the majority of jews have not lived there since the end of the second temple period there have been jews living there since. There has been a Jewish precense on the land since biblical times. That is not to say that there were not people aside from Jews living there.


Actually, let's not forget which party carried out the withdrawl from Gaza. It Sharon's Likud.
Sharon? Yes, Sharon. He was even able to garner the support of most fo the country on this issue. Getting a majority of Israelis to agree on an issues was something that was considered almost impossible.
He was then forced out of the Likud party and with him he took the more center and left Likud representatives and started Kadima. It is Kadima's intention to continue Shron's disengagement with the removal of the Israeli communities in the West Bank eventually handing it over to the Palestinians.

To get a much more candid view of Sharon read the following Times Online (not a news source that I would usually point to but one that I know others on this thread trust):
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article...9593_1,00.html

Note the date on the interview, November 2002. This is before the US invasion of Iraq and before the Israeli withdrawl from Gaza.
In it you can see that Sharon is already turning around and coming much more to the center. He hints at a plan he has to bring peace to the region and about how it will require Israelis making tough concessions. He, egotistically and maybe correctly, believed that he is the only Israeli leader that will be able to carry out this plan and bring about peace.

I remember reading this article when it first came out. It upset me very much as I had no idea what he was planning and would certainly not rather see Israel make concessions that were painful especially if it came with nothing in return.

And in the end it turned out that he was almost comepletely correct. His plan was to begin with a withrawl from Gaza. He was able to use his military history, his hawkish right wing reputation to win over the center and part of the rigth center. How could these people not beleive that strong Israeli warriror. If it was a left wing PM proposing it (like in the past - Oslo, Clinton Barak) only the left would have gone along with it.
He did, at the same time alient the rest of the right wing of Israeli society causing a rift in his own party and eventually splitting off.

This is a long interview but woth the read.

Enough with this tangent though...


Isreal, as powerclown stated is comprised of people of different religions. According to the CIA World Factbook approximately 80% of Israel is Jewish (or 77% according to Wikipedia.
of that number it is estimated that approximately 80% are secular while 20% consider themselves observant (www.jewishagency.org).
While the percentages lean a little more to the secular side in the rest of the world for the jewish populations, I would say that 80% makes the state pretty secular.

Also, it was the social zionists of the late 1800's that started the pus for Jews to move to Israel. These jews were hardly religious. In fact, they probably could have been considered anti religious. As a result of this and the general secularization of the jewish population around the world over the last couple hundred years the jewish population of Isreal is not just made up of religious (those that people would expect to want to live there) but in fact made up of mostly secular jews.


(sorry that was a bit long.
Last night I left work (yes I spend some time on here at work) and I was tense for about two hours after from reading and responding to the politics threads. I can't continue like this. I may have to refrain from reading and posting but I would rather that the conversations occur in a respectable non-confrontational manner. I know it is hard to really get the way people are saying things just from reading, it is much better to have a voice conversation and even better, a face to face one. I feel, however, that there is alot of anger directed towards each other on these threads especially the ones involving discussion about Israel. I hope that we can do a few things
- Give people the benefit of the doubt when reading a post so taht we don't automatically assume that they are being rude. Tone is very hard to set in writing.
- Try to listen and take in what someone is trying to say before firing off a response.
- Even though we are ofent set in our views (i know I am) it is possible that someone who holds the opposite views does have a point about something. Be open, maybe they can change your mind on something.
- Accept that others do have opinions that are different

Some people are really good at this others are really bad.
As I said I thing this really comes out in the Politics baord and most notably on any thread that involves Israel.)

Sorry for the littel rant at the end, but I really had to get that off my chest. I really felt sick for a couple hours last night after spending time here. I would rather not feel that way and it would be great if others did not feel that way.

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Sticky The Stickman