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Why do we give Jews a 'Pass'?

I was reading an article in the "Atheist Revolution" blog and I came across this snippet:

When I encounter a parent telling her children about Santa Claus, I may find it unfortunate that someone would lie to one's own child merely for entertainment purposes. The potential for harm here seems trivially small. I cannot say the same for the Muslim parent instructing his son in the virtues of martyrdom or the Christian who tells her daughter that her Jewish friends will go to hell because they have not been "saved."

Could we not add something like the following to the last sentence:

...or the jew who tells his kids that he's "chosen" and has a covenant with god that entitles him and his "people" to the land of Israel, and then uses that as justification for a bloody occupation of Palestine.

The one-year anniversary of Operation Cast Lead is approaching (Dec. 27th) and I think we should take a look at where we've come since then. The Goldstone Report: buried. Settlements: expanding. Palestinian house demolitions: continuing.

As atheists, we should be appalled whenever religion is used to justify actions that result in suffering or death. We do not seem to hesitate to speak out when a child dies because a Christian Scientist eschewed Western medicine in favor of prayer. We do not seem to hesitate to speak out when a Muslim nutjob finds motivation in his religion to grab some firearms and gun down some people. Why are we silent when an ethnic group uses a story about chosen people and covenants in The Big Book of Jewish Fairy Tales (aka, the Old Testament) to justify what is looking more and more like a slow, methodical ethnic cleansing campaign? Why do the Jews need to have Jerusalem all to themselves? Why is it so important to them to have a Jewish majority that they'll turn Gaza into a prison camp and The West Bank into Swiss cheese where the Palestinians are forced to live on smaller and smaller plots of land and endure more and more restrictions on their movement? If this were being done to a Jewish population they'd be screaming about a second holocaust.

The bottom line is that all three major religions are guilty of many modern-day atrocities and have a great deal of blood on their metaphorical hands. Why do we only bewail the actions of two of those three major religions?

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Permalink Reply by Glen Rosenberg on August 12, 2012 at 1:42am

Elissa,

Mark twain wrote an essay attempting to explain the unreasonable hatred of jews. Part of his answer is jealousy. Culturally Jews value education and have tended to excel to the perceived detriment of their non-jewish neighbors. He also wrote about the well known religious source of hatred.

I have read that Chinese in the Phillipines are not liked by filipinos because they tend to rise to the top of that culture.

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Permalink Reply by Jonathan Chang on August 12, 2012 at 1:56am

Yeah, because I'm jealous of Israelis. There's not a day in my life where I didn't think, "Why wasn't I born an Israeli? So I could see rockets over my head every day? So my countries could get education and military technology from those stupid Americans, while we insult their leaders and get away with it? Why couldn't I go rape some inferior race and be pardoned by my superior government?" Not a day I tell you! (By the way, since you feel justified to glorify Israel, don't act surprised when other people do what you're doing to the contrary.)

But alas, I'm just a Chinese in the Philippines...

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Permalink Reply by Elissa Bernheim on August 14, 2012 at 12:10am

jonathan,

i dont think anyone is trying to glorify israel.

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Permalink Reply by Elissa Bernheim on August 14, 2012 at 12:06am

glen,

yes i read the mark twain essay.

thats interesting about the Chinese in Philippines.

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Permalink Reply by Glen Rosenberg on August 12, 2012 at 2:03am

JC aka dummy ass, king of the nonsequiturs, and proponent of propaganda, It goes to explaining the centuries old hatred of Jews. The diaspora took jews all over the globe including china and japan. In christian countries they were victims of persecution and discrimination. Much of the source was christian. Theologians did what they could to foster this hatred. But Jews tended to do better economically like chinese in the Phillipines today and their success only added to the enmity.

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Permalink Reply by Jonathan Chang on August 12, 2012 at 2:08am

When you make some obscure racial reference that only a racially-minded person would get, I was left to infer what you meant... because why would I be jealous of Israel?

By the way, this argument sounds like that schoolyard taunt/internet meme:

"You jealous?"

"You mad bro?"

Nah bra, these Muslims is just jelous of ah education...

I don't know how Filipinos feel but I wouldn't underestimate them.

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Permalink Reply by Doc on August 12, 2012 at 2:22am

You don't have to be jealous. Just study enough to convert. Then, you won't even have to convert! You'll already have a developed brain, and that's what really goads, isn't it, the lack of a fully developed brain? All it takes is hard work in the form of study.