Re: Current Issues in Religious Tolerance

Greetings;

Pat Kohli <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message news:<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>...
> Robert Arvay wrote:

> > As to your unfounded ad hominem attack, I have not only never said
> > anything even remotely like what you accuse me of, I have consistently
> > sympathized with the Arabs, and with ALL oppressed people.
> 
> "I have been trying to gain an insight into the Arab Islamic mindset,
> to better understand the intransigent hatred and fanaticism besetting
> the Middle East."
> - Robert Arvay, 8 August 2002

Taken terribly out of context.  Yes, hatred does beset the Middle
East, and yes, I am trying to understand the Arab-Islamic mind.  When
parents strap bombs to their children and send them out to kill
themselves and other children, I would say that there is a problem.  I
would further say that excusing it, glamorizing it, and ignoring it,
are all the wrong reactions.  But I also offer suggestions--- NOT a
"let's kill them all," suggestion as you would have me to say, but
rather, democracy, anti-corruption, and economic prosperity, which
would change the character of desperate hoplessness into one of
promise and hope.
Why you choose to distort my theme is beyond me.
> 
> -------------------------------------
> "During the Cold War ....the subjects of the Soviet empire ....were
> pretty much like us - folks who wanted life, liberty and the pursuit
> of happiness.
> 
> But this is not true of the Middle East.".

If I recall, this was a quote from a columnist who was pointing out
that while in the USSR there were pro-democracy forces, the Middle
East, having no history or experience with democracy, relies on
autocratic and theocratic solutions.  Exactly the wrong prescription. 
Democracy can be and should be introduced to the Middle East.
Again, your interest seems not to be in illuminating the discussion,
but on killing the messenger.
> ------------------------------------
> 
> Robert, perhaps you don't intend it, but you do seem very much the hateful 
> anti-Semitic bigot when you post here

Perhaps you're too eager to see me in that light, or at least so to
portray me.

> about the middle-East.  Reading you, and your paste-ins from JWR, I'd think there is 
> a pipeline of hatred and bigotry
> running from here to there.  Your attempt to paint Mrs. Arafat, a mother with 
> children, as an apostate from Islam,
> struck me as particularly hateful.
> 
All I did was point out that Mr Arafat does not send HIS OWN children
out on suicide missions--- only the children of others.  And that was
quite clear in context.  But I'm the one who's hateful?