Plato's Beard » 2010

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/29/opinion/29abunimah.html?_r=1&ref=opinion

Both the Irish and Middle Eastern conflicts figure prominently in American domestic politics — yet both have played out in very different ways. The United States allowed the Irish-American lobby to help steer policy toward the weaker side: the Irish government in Dublin and Sinn Fein and other nationalist parties in the north. At times, the United States put intense pressure on the British government, leveling the field so that negotiations could result in an agreement with broad support. By contrast, the American government let the Israel lobby shift the balance of United States support toward the stronger of the two parties: Israel.

This disparity has not gone unnoticed by those with firsthand knowledge of the Irish talks. In a 2009 letter to The Times of London, several British and Irish negotiators, including John Hume, who shared the Nobel Peace Prize for the Belfast Agreement, criticized the one-sided demands imposed solely on Hamas. “Engaging Hamas,†the negotiators wrote, “does not amount to condoning terrorism or attacks on civilians. In fact, it is a precondition for security and for brokering a workable agreement.â€

Plato's Beard » 2010 » August

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More than one writer has criticised the Anti Defamation League’s stance against the proposed Islamic Center near “Ground Zero” in Manhattan, using analogies such as the below from Peter Beinart:

The ADL’s rationale for opposing the Ground Zero mosque is that “building an Islamic Center in the shadow of the World Trade Center will cause some victims more pain—unnecessarily—and that is not right.” Huh? What if white victims of African-American crime protested the building of a black church in their neighborhood? Or gentile victims of Bernie Madoff protested the building of a synagogue?

These analogies are erroneous, and I believe the error is non-trivial. African-American crime is not committed in the name of “African-Americanism”. Similarly Bernie Madoff did not scam his clients as a claimed act of Judaism. However, if I recall correctly, the attackers on 9/11 did (among other claims) consider their act to be on behalf of Islam; and the act was masterminded by an Islamic organisation or entity. The oft-repeated caution that these individuals do not represent Islam is the point that is missing in the analogies. A better analogy, that brings out this point, would be:

What if a Unitarian church was proposed near the location of the Stonewall Riots (or another location where homosexuals where victims of an attack)? Given the virulent homophobia of the Westboro Baptist Church, a Christian entity, does it make sense to ban the Unitarian church in order to spare pain to the harmed community?

Aside: someone like Christopher Hitchens might argue that given that any form of religion, even a progressive, inclusive one like the Unitarian Universalists, are the root cause of a good part of the violence and terrorism we see around the world, due to their basis in irrationality.

Update: as Allogenes points out in the comments, the Unitarian Universalist do not identify themselves as christians, so my analogy is as flawed as the one I criticise. Just desserts! The reader is encouraged to substitute a mild, tolerant denomination (the Episcopalians?) for the UU, in the above.