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From: reiher@ucla-cs.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.religion
Subject: Re: A short essay on tolerance
Message-ID: <3865@ucla-cs.ARPA>
Date: Mon, 11-Feb-85 03:15:28 EST
Article-I.D.: ucla-cs.3865
Posted: Mon Feb 11 03:15:28 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 13-Feb-85 02:34:19 EST
References: <2720@umcp-cs.UUCP> <277@mhuxi.UUCP>
Reply-To: reiher@ucla-cs.UUCP (Peter Reiher)
Distribution: net
Organization: UCLA Computer Science Department
Lines: 39
Summary: 

In article <277@mhuxi.UUCP> dsg@mhuxi.UUCP (David S. Green) writes:
>[] 
>>   "We had a firebomb thrown at us in 1973, a mail bomb in 1977, had it
>> painted up with so many words, and then 2 1/2 years ago, the church was
>> burned," said John Anthony, a Bible teacher from Hope, Ark.
>> Charley Wingate   umcp-cs!mangoe
>
>	How come you don't post anything about the firebombing,
>swastika painting and burning of Synagogues in the United States?
>Are you still trying to see if your 'distribution feature' works?
>     

What precisely is your point here?  That, since Jews are badly treated in
parts of predominantly Christian America, it's OK for Jews to treat
Christians badly in Jerusalem?  That it's somehow dishonest to point out
only one form of religious intolerance when others are going on elsewhere?
That Americans are so anti-Semitic that we have lost any right to criticize
the behavior of a portion of the Israeli populace?  

Firebombing a church/synagogue/generic-place-of-worship (any scientific
laboratory in Rich Rosen's case? :-)) is the act of someone who thinks like
the Nazis.  They may have a different set of prejudices, but they are
essentially Nazis.  I would have thought that Israelis might be more
sensitive to this kind of behavior in themselves than some other peoples,
since others' use of these tactics against them has done the Jews so much harm.
I suspect that ese Gestapo tactics are condemned by the bulk of the Israelis.

Just because Tony Alamo distributes ridiculous, insulting anti-
Catholic literature doesn't give me the right to drive out to Arizona or
wherever and blow up his church.  Sneakily trying to convert Jewish
children strikes me as less offensive than that, and hardly likely to be
very effective, either.  I credit Israeli children with more brains than
that.  Protests, pickets, letters to the newspapers are more reasonable
alternatives than letter bombs.
-- 

        			Peter Reiher
        			reiher@ucla-cs.arpa
        			{...ihnp4,ucbvax,sdcrdcf}!ucla-cs!reiher