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July 13, 2005 In his July 12th article, Thomas Keyes claims that "the war with Islam was started by Israel." The Israel-Palestine dispute is certainly a factor in our war with Islamic extremists, but it is only one of many causes of the present situation. Another factor is that, immediately after the attack on our World Trade Center buildings, Bin Laden said emphatically that he was infuriated by the presence of American soldiers on the "sacred" soil of Arabia, and he felt it was his duty to punish us for that. We might not think it was important, but he certainly did. One more factor is the hyper-aggressive attacks by Iraq, against Iran and then Kuwait, attempting to control more petroleum sources. Potentially at least, there were lots of oil profits to pay for the massive military build-up. Hussein certainly had plans to buy longer range rockets than the Scuds he already purchased from China, whether he actually had done that yet or not. At any rate, oil was a big factor in the Iraq situation, bigger than Israel. As to the legitimacy of Jews moving into Israel, England was in control, and it is not different from allowing various refugees to move into London right now, including Muslims. The average British citizen is not asked --- the government decides. There was some violence involved in the Israel decision, but there often is in such cases. It was not a war of conquest, Jews versus Muslims (until the latter tried to exterminate the former, many years later). Whether the Bible confers legitimacy is not relevant, because it was an official British goverment decision, right or wrong. Regarding the Jewish immigrants having been converts in the ancient Khazaria, that is an unsubstantiated tale. Looking up that place name in Encyclopedia Brittania and also in wikipedia.org, this is treated as a rumor believed by very few scholars. There is no definite trace of the Khazars who did convert to Judaism, and they seem to have died out. Anyhow, most of the early immigrants to Israel definitely came from Western Europe, often with German names. The best evidence indicates that their ancestors had migrated northward during the diaspora in Roman times. The relatively few modern Israelis coming from eastern areas like Kiev (and further east) often had obvious problems like lack of education, and they were an identifiable small minority. ------------ About the author: Dan Shanefield is a retired engineering prof, who worked at Bell Labs and then at Rutgers University. He wrote the book "Industrial Electronics for Engineers, Chemists, and Technicians". Visit his website or email Dan Shanefield: shanefield@ieee.org Tell a friend about this site! ------------ |
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