This diary is inspired by a couple of recent events, and something that bothered me in some recent I/P discussions here. None of these would stretch into a diary, but together they seem to be enough.
1. Who knew that it was possible for the presidential nominee of a major American political party to go to Israel and offend both Palestinians and Jews? That takes true finesse! And the man still doesn't know that he did anything wrong! (I don't know that I can use enough exclamation points.)
2. Yesterday's New York Times editorial by Israeli Abraham Burg is well worth reading. He begins by saying that the relationship between Israel and the US has changed for the worse when Romney can visit and promise to support the "war-mongering Prime Minister" of Israel against Iran. His position is that a social democratic and secular democracy in Israel has been replaced by a capitalist almost-theocracy, and that supporting such a government goes directly against Israel's interest.
Of course, I like this since I have been writing it to various politicians in this country for some years now. But the editorial, called Israel's Vanishing Democracy, is well worth reading in its entirety. Burg's solution is a written constitution which would protect minority rights.
3. I have noticed that we here at DKos are careless in our use of the words Palestinian, Arab, and Jew. I noticed it within the past couple of weeks in a discussion of I/P, and I think we need to be more careful.
Particularly, I saw the conflict described as a Muslim/Jewish problem. I must say that I didn't realize at first that many of the Arabs, including both of the remaining Palestinians, who post here are Christian. We truly need to take care that we are not reducing the argument to a religious one. Suicide bombers are all, as far as I know, Muslims, but that doesn't make all Palestinians Muslim any more than it makes them suicide bombers. Or, for that matter, all critics of Israel's policies, anti-semites. There are Muslim and Christian and Druse Israeli citizens, and Christian Palestinians. Burg, in the editorial references above, says that originally "Jew" in Israel was used as a nationality rather than a religion.