What Doesn't Obama Get About Sectarianism

Sectarianism: one group in conflict with another.  When it's the Jews being abused it's called anti-Semitism.  But, in Northern Ireland, it was the Catholics and the Protestants at each other's throat.  In what was once Yugoslavia, it was the Croats (Roman Catholic), the Serbs (Eastern Orthodox), and the Muslims who contested one another's rights to land.

That Arabs (Muslims, but also Christians) in the middle east would deny a place to the Jews is really nothing new.  And, of course, despite whatever notions Obama may harbor, it has no bearing on the attitudes of Muslims towards Americans, towards Jews, or towards westerners in general.  Indeed, the Muslims don't even seem to be able to tolerate each other.  Just this week, a Sunni suicide bomber in Afghanistan detonated his charge outside a Shiite mosque killing scores of Afghans whose only sin was being Shiite.  In Iraq, Shiites have returned the favor and kill Shiia.

But, of course, with the Jews, there's a difference.  Israel, in the life time of many living today, actually created a state which respects the rights of Christians, Muslims, Druse, Bahai, Mormons, etc.  The puzzling thing is that some people; liberal people, who have a problem with Israel, will take even what most people consider to be positive, such as Israel's open attitude towards gays, and give it a negative connotation.  They've now taken to calling it "pink washing."

As someone once said, "No good deed goes unpunished; certainly, not in Israel.