ETAB:
And, yes, I agree with you that much of what remains in the west is normative. But it may not have started out that way. And may not be all that normative in, say, Latin America. Or much of the Bible Belt (been there, lately?) If you were Jewish, or Hindu, or athiest and wanted to do business on the Christian Sabbath, and were legally prevented in an overwhelmingly Christian community, would that not be a church-state issue?
Still, I was merely addressing where Israel may sit on a scale from 0 to 10, where 0 is Talibanistan and 10 is, say, Las Vegas. I’d put Israel somewhere in the middle. To lump Israel in with the Islamist states is disingenuous.
Where does the Grand Mufti’s cozy relationship with the Nazi’s, long before there ever was an Israel, fall with regard to the Islamist states “merely” trying to suppress modernization? Ie; Islamic hostility to Israel actually is entirely because it is Jewish (read the book). All the rest is a “factor”.
