12 Feb 2010, 9:47 am
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SilverPikmin
Deinonychus
Joined: 1 Aug 2008
Age: 35
Gender: Male
Posts: 360
Location: Merseyside, England, UK
16 Feb 2010, 5:12 pm
jc6chan wrote:
WorldsEdge wrote:
jc6chan wrote:
WorldsEdge wrote:
And besides, there's at least one group of Arabs who are counted as such but are also staunchly pro-Israel: the Druze.
Pro-Israel Arabs exist? That sounds like an oxymoron to be. Even Mahmoud Abbas whom the US calls "moderate" is really critical of Israel's policies. It's just that he decided not to use violence against Israel.
Please tell me you're not thinking that Arab = Muslim and Muslim = Arab.
In fact, until very recently (I think the 1990s) most people of Arab descent living in the US were Christians of some denomination or other, who had either fled or had ancestors who had fled from the joy of being a Christian in country dominated by the Religion of Peace. And even today somewhere between 5% to 10% (estimates vary) of the population of Egypt remains Christian. And good luck to them. They need it.In any event, the Druze consider themselves Muslim, but most other Muslims do not, probably in the same way Mormons consider themselves Christian, but a lot of Christians do not think they are. This is because both Mormons and Druze have made additions to these faiths (extra prophets, new holy books) that orthodox followers consider both unacceptable and heretical. But in the West "heretical" means one thing, and in the Islamic world quite another. As in, the Druze historically got slaughtered in pogroms from time to time and the Mormons run one state (Utah) and arguably two more (Arizona and Idaho).
Anyway, the Druze are ethnically Arab, and the Druze serve in Israel's military and die on her behalf. And have been doing so since the 1950s, when they requested that their exemption to the military draft be lifted.
Quote:
http://www.jcpa.org/jl/hit06.htm
A Minority Within a Minority
The Druze are a minority within a minority in the State of Israel, an Arab-speaking community loyal to the state that has suffered hundreds of casualties in its defense, and whose men serve today in high-ranking and sensitive positions within the Israeli military and security forces. Their willingness to accept the burdens of compulsory military service have led to parallel demands for equal rights within Israeli society.
In their struggle to obtain those rights, various problems and conflicts have surfaced from within the community. Some have called for identification with Arab nationalism, partly in reaction to a perception that the Israeli government takes them for granted and now prefers to court the Palestinian Arabs. Most, however, seek full integration within the Jewish state.
Quote:
In the mid-1950s, when Israel was under heavy Arab pressure, the Druze leadership appealed to David Ben-Gurion, then Minister of Defense, to draft Druze men into the Israeli Army on the same basis as Jews, which was possible under the State Defense Act of 1949. That Act called for drafting all individuals in the country, but also allowed the Minister to exempt individuals as well as entire groups. The Druze asked that their exemption be cancelled. There is still considerable controversy among Druze as to why this appeal was made, to what extent it really represented what the members of the community wanted, and whether there might have been some kind of manipulation on the part of the Jewish leadership. Yet the change was made, and the draft of the Druze has been in existence and has been reasonably well accepted throughout the decades. There are not a great many exemptions made on religious and conscientious grounds, and not much more than among the Jews. However, as the equal duties part of the social contract was indeed achieved, so came demands for equal rights as well.
I knew that not all Arabs were Muslim. But what group of Arabs LOVE being occupied by Israel and LOVE the siege and LOVE having their homes evicted because Jewish settlers "need to move in"?
The Druze were always a minority though in the Arab countries; Israel is a sort of haven for them too as it is for the Jews.
16 Feb 2010, 5:45 pm
16 Feb 2010, 6:22 pm
16 Feb 2010, 6:22 pm
16 Feb 2010, 6:31 pm
17 Feb 2010, 10:29 pm
WorldsEdge wrote:
jc6chan wrote:
WorldsEdge wrote:
And besides, there's at least one group of Arabs who are counted as such but are also staunchly pro-Israel: the Druze.
Pro-Israel Arabs exist? That sounds like an oxymoron to be. Even Mahmoud Abbas whom the US calls "moderate" is really critical of Israel's policies. It's just that he decided not to use violence against Israel.
Please tell me you're not thinking that Arab = Muslim and Muslim = Arab.
In fact, until very recently (I think the 1990s) most people of Arab descent living in the US were Christians of some denomination or other, who had either fled or had ancestors who had fled from the joy of being a Christian in country dominated by the Religion of Peace. And even today somewhere between 5% to 10% (estimates vary) of the population of Egypt remains Christian. And good luck to them. They need it.In any event, the Druze consider themselves Muslim, but most other Muslims do not, probably in the same way Mormons consider themselves Christian, but a lot of Christians do not think they are. This is because both Mormons and Druze have made additions to these faiths (extra prophets, new holy books) that orthodox followers consider both unacceptable and heretical. But in the West "heretical" means one thing, and in the Islamic world quite another. As in, the Druze historically got slaughtered in pogroms from time to time and the Mormons run one state (Utah) and arguably two more (Arizona and Idaho).
Anyway, the Druze are ethnically Arab, and the Druze serve in Israel's military and die on her behalf. And have been doing so since the 1950s, when they requested that their exemption to the military draft be lifted.
Quote:
http://www.jcpa.org/jl/hit06.htm
A Minority Within a Minority
The Druze are a minority within a minority in the State of Israel, an Arab-speaking community loyal to the state that has suffered hundreds of casualties in its defense, and whose men serve today in high-ranking and sensitive positions within the Israeli military and security forces. Their willingness to accept the burdens of compulsory military service have led to parallel demands for equal rights within Israeli society.
In their struggle to obtain those rights, various problems and conflicts have surfaced from within the community. Some have called for identification with Arab nationalism, partly in reaction to a perception that the Israeli government takes them for granted and now prefers to court the Palestinian Arabs. Most, however, seek full integration within the Jewish state.
Quote:
In the mid-1950s, when Israel was under heavy Arab pressure, the Druze leadership appealed to David Ben-Gurion, then Minister of Defense, to draft Druze men into the Israeli Army on the same basis as Jews, which was possible under the State Defense Act of 1949. That Act called for drafting all individuals in the country, but also allowed the Minister to exempt individuals as well as entire groups. The Druze asked that their exemption be cancelled. There is still considerable controversy among Druze as to why this appeal was made, to what extent it really represented what the members of the community wanted, and whether there might have been some kind of manipulation on the part of the Jewish leadership. Yet the change was made, and the draft of the Druze has been in existence and has been reasonably well accepted throughout the decades. There are not a great many exemptions made on religious and conscientious grounds, and not much more than among the Jews. However, as the equal duties part of the social contract was indeed achieved, so came demands for equal rights as well.
I like your analogy of the Druze with the Mormons. But you're wrong when you say that "heresy means different things" in Islam and in Christiandom.
They mean very similiar things.
How do you think the Mormons got control of Utah?
it was because in the 1800's they were forced to flee the civilized world and ended up in that worst lunar landscape desert region of North America because- in New England and in the mid-west they kept getting raped and murdered in porgroms by mainstream Christian Amricans!
Much like the Sunni's and Shiites putting aside thier animosity to vent their even greater common hatred of the Druze the often mutualy hostile Protestants and Catholics in 19th centurey America were given to forget their differences to express their greater common hatred of the Mormons.
18 Feb 2010, 11:19 am
