Greece has Jewish and Muslim citizens, but is a staunchly Christian country, with Christian holidays, the cross as a national symbol, and institutional preference given to Christianity. America proudly declares, "In God we trust," not fearing to offend polytheists. France refused official status to the language of its large and compactly settled Breton minority.
Preference should be distinguished from discrimination. State-level religious advances are a matter of preference. There are many preferences around. Government tenders prefer the lowest price to the highest quality; such criterion arbitrarily benefits some producers at the expense of others. State-owned European cathedrals host Christian services, never Jewish ones. Governments build roads though the same funds could benefit the poor or ill persons. Public entities, like any other, have to make choices, and choosing means arbitrarily preferring one thing to another. Judaism in Israel, and Christianity in Greece, are the preferred religions.
Discrimination is not merely an absence of preference, but purposeful harm done to a narrowly defined group. A ban on Islam in Israel would be discrimination (not an unreasonable discrimination, given the Torah’s dictates). Similarly, a ban on the Palestinian symbols and songs would discriminate against Arabs, but the absence of Palestinian symbols on the Israeli flag, and not mentioning Arabs in the Israeli national anthem, is a consequence of a preference for Jews.
If Arabs don’t like that, they are free to leave and enjoy every detail of Muslim symbolism, including the ban on Jews, in Saudi Arabia or Jordan.
Amen to that!
There isn't anything wrong with a nation favoring it's national heritage. A Christian nation should favor Christianity. The Jewish nation should favor Jews. The Moslem nations should favor Islam. But none of the nations should be cruel or mistreat their minorities. On the other hand, these minorities should not expect "special treatment", in these countries. Like you say, if they don't like the country they are living in, they should leave!!!
Simply stated, and yet a concept that I've found is difficult for North Americans to understand. In Europe generally there is a "state religion", typically some form of Christianity, whether Protestant (England, Germany) or Catholic (Spain, Portugal, France). The model is different from the "separation of Church and State" of the U.S. Constitution, yet it is neither discriminatory nor "politically incorrect".
Unfortunately in Israel, which by rights should be institutionally "Jewish", the Leftist minority controlling the intelligentsia (culture, education, and communications) and the court system (legal) has succeeded in pushing forth a more anti-Semitic agenda than would be acceptable in any European or American nation. For example, in what Western country in the world would a ban on Jewish worship be allowed? Here in Israel it is against the law to even visit the Temple Mount, Judaism's holiest site, with a Jewish prayer book in one's possession, and I personally have been bodily dragged off the Mount when caught committing the "crime" of moving my lips in a way that could be interpreted as Jewish prayer. In America, such treatment by police would have been grounds for legal action, and even the State of Israel would have joined in the hue and cry. Yet here in the so-called "Jewish State", such anti-Jewish discrimination is accepted daily as the "proper" course of events.
It is no wonder, then, that we see so-called "peace proposals" centered around the idea that some area of the Land must be made Judenrein - free of Jewish inhabitants - while other areas are expected to continue to be "for all citizens". The defining of this Nazi worldview, that there can only be peace and prosperity in the complete absence of any Jews, as a prerequisite for any kind of regional peace is the great propaganda victory of the anti-Semitic Arabs and their collaborators, the Israeli Left, in our time. Anyone making such a claim forty, or even thirty-five years ago, would have been roundly condemned as a racist. Today, the Truth has been stood completely on its head, and anyone claiming that this concept of eliminating Jews is not a solution is the "racist". Which is to say nothing, of course, of a simple claim that if one area is to be completely free of Jews, then some other area should be completely free of non-Jews (i.e., Arabs), which while no more racist than the Road Map, the Geneva Plan, or any other tomfoolery, has at least the benefit of being fair and even-handed.
May we live to see the day when Jewish values are returned to the State, and when it is no longer true that a Jew finds greater freedom of religion outside our Homeland than within it.
Even the secular US has clear religious preference. Monotheism, monogamy, absence of religious mutilation…
There is no end to cases of Jewish discrimination in Israel. Jews need approval for real estate purchases in Hebron; Jews cannot visit the sites of dismantled settlements… That's besides an unofficial legal pro-Arab bias: Jews are punished for illegal construction while Arabs are not; Arabs receive lesser sentences for similar crimes, etc.
About the Judenrein areas, yesterday's Haaretz run a curious article along Obadiah's lines: that the settlers should be allowed to reman behind the Green Line after Israeli withdrawal. The Road Map demands that Israel withdraws her citizens, not Jews. Stateless Jews can stay in Palestine.
Eliyahu, you are a racist! How dare you claim that Jews are entitled to live among their own kind, and practice their own religion?
It is appartheid! Jews should accept their enemies among them, and submit before them, until there are no more Jews. That is the natural order of things.
Why do you insist on confusing our gentile friends with your ideas of Jewish freedom and sovereignity?
After all, they only care about our well-being - They know that once we are all dead, we will not have to live in confrontation anymore.
Shame on you!
They know that once we are all dead, we will not have to live in confrontation anymore.
Sorry, Erick, but the example of the Mount of Olives cemetery, vandalized in the 1950s by the Jordanians, including the Arab Legion (led by British officers), and the more recent example of Joseph's Tomb, vandalized in 2000 by PA "police", prove that even when we are dead and buried for over 3,000 years, then we will still be "in confrontation" with them.
Good point. I guess the world is even worse than in my sarcastic remark.
Europeans vandalize Jewish graves on a daily basis as well, if you mentioned it.
Guess the only way to play nice would be to cremate ourselves to ashes, and then send the ashes to space.