Would you shake hands with a jew?
 

This is what that region is like. How do people come to hate so much?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DrtjHl9iF7w

http://iran.worldcupblog.org/upload/ahmadinejad_2.jpg

Re: Would you shake hands with a jew?
 

Why did Nazi Germany and Hitler hate the jews?

Re: Would you shake hands with a jew?
 

Part of it was an issue of political control, the other part was Hitler's desire to engineer a genetically "pure" German race.

Re: Would you shake hands with a jew?
 

Very well and succinctly put.

Re: Would you shake hands with a jew?
 

I wish that was shocking. Sadly, it's what I've come to expect.

Re: Would you shake hands with a jew?
 

it is very sad.

Re: Would you shake hands with a jew?
 

This is precisely why we do not do well in this area, we try to apply a western "mindset" and cannot comprehend the deep seated bad blood, we discount historical issues and long time divisions for "quick fixes", many of the issues will exist ad infinitum and no matter what we do will not get better. But there are some who believe we can make it better.

Re: Would you shake hands with a jew?
 

On a brighter note, much of the U.S. had the same attitude towards the blacks until the 1960s, but I would say in took only one generation to turn things around. As many have said, peace between Israel and the Palestinians is key to peace in the region.

Of course, the scary thing is that that clip came from Saudi Arabia, one of our allies and a major owner of our debt.

Re: Would you shake hands with a jew?
 

I think that they'd always dislike each other; but if the climate there was better there would be much less hate. Its too hot and there's not enough water. Human nature is such that when you're miserable, you're faster to lash out and you lash out more violently. There's also the tendency of people to absolve themselves of guilt (for not walking out of the region thousands of years ago) but to pin the blame on someone else.

What we need to do is invent a weather machine and shoot it at the ME thereby converting their climate to something like Seattle's. Where its never more than a few degrees from 70F [21C] and it rains 4 days out of 5. If we did that two things would happen: 1) 'grunge' music would make a huge comeback, and 2) all the Arabs would sit around coffee houses all day long b!tching about the Jews; but never actually do anything about them.

Re: Would you shake hands with a jew?
 

I think the majority of people want peace and security and have no particular motivation for hate. There are some liberal Jews who work with the Palestinians, and some progressive Palestinians who recognize Israel's right to exist. But, like anywhere, a small part of the population is bitter and hate filled. Most people just want to get on with their daily lives, and don't have much time to hate.

Perhaps a general question is in order. Does anyone here actually know any Arabs and have you found them to be virulently anti-Jewish?