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4 FEBRUARY 10.2007 • Q-NOTES
Editor’s Note
by David Moore . Q-Notes staff
Still seeking global coexistence
It’s been a few years since I originally ran
this editorial. Given the current world situa
tion — / wanted to run it again. Many of us
are still hoping for world peace — and it still
seems as far away now as it did over two
years ago when I originally penned this plea
for sanity.
The President of Iran announced in late
October that he thinks Israel should be
wiped off the face of the earth. A few days
later Mahmoud Ahmadinejad dismissed
international condemnation of his words,
saying his controversial remarks were •
“right and just” and reflective of the
Arabic world.
This is the same Ahmadinejad who
recently decided to show the world that his
country will not bend or knuckle under to
foreign pressure on behalf of Iranian gays
by stepping up its legal actions against
them, including more executions.
And the same man who is determined to
acquire nuclear power.
There is no doubt in my mind that
Ahmadinejad is a power-hungry homopho
bic, religious zealot bent on complete Islamic
domination of the entire region. But what is
this radical reaction to a non-Islamic pres
ence in the Middle East based on?
I often wonder how the world of today
might be different if NATO had not carved
Israel out of the Middle East, offering it up
as a homeland to Jews that had survived the
Holocaust.
Of course, the country has changed
hands multiple times during its long histo
ry. Jews showed up in the region sometime
around the 14th century B.C., although
they were not to actually control the coun
try until 1000 B.C. (give or take a few
years). They lost control a little under four
hundred years later and continued to fight
unsuccessfully to regain it against Assyria,
Persia, Rome and many others for the next
700 years.
For a period the region was dominated
by the Romans. Then, in 638 A.D., Arab
Muslims invaded and would remain in
power for the next 1300 years.
In 1918'Great Britain captured Palestine
and promised the Jews that the country
would be their new “homeland” at the end
of World War One.
After the war ended, large numbers of
Jews began to immigrate to Palestine. For
the next 30 years or so there was much
infighting and bloodshed between the
Muslim and Jewish occupants of Palestine.
On May 15,1948, Great Britain relin
quished control of Palestine and the country
was once again called Israel. Of the more
than 800,000 Arabs who once lived in
Israeli-held territory before 1948, only about
170,000 remained. The rest
became refugees in the surrounding Arab
countries, ending the Arab majority in the
Jewish state.
So who has the right to call the region
their own? Looking back at history it’s clear
that Muslims retained control for a greater
length of time — though that doesn’t
change the fact that they are no longer the
dominant power today.
Was it right to take Palestine away from
its existing populace in 1948? In my opin
ion, no. Would it be right to destroy Israel
and its current population today to replace
it with a Muslim-dominated society? Of
course not. Almost an entire generation of
people have come and gone since that
time.
It’s time for a new generation of Muslims
and Jews to put aside their philosophocal
differences and learn to live side by side in
peace.
So why is an agnostic American gay man
talking about all of this?
Because there’s a coihmon theme of
oppression in the Middle Fasten conflict
and current political developments in our
own country. Just how different is the strug
gle between right-wing conservative
Christians and.. .well.. .the rest of us? Be it
an American Jew or Muslim, a gay or lesbian
agnostic or Christian, a Buddhist Laotian or
a Mexican-immigrant Catholic?
In theory, not too different.
Evangelicals are certain that their belief
should be interpreted literally. They also
believe that their form of religion is right
and everyone else is wrong and unless we’re
all converted, we’re all going to hell.
Once a relatively apolitical group,
Christian conservatives began organizing on
a community precinct level some 30 years
ago and today are perhaps the strongest
political power in this country. They main
tain influence over the president, the House
.of Representatives and the Senate.
Many of them are today elected offi
cials who want to interpret the law via the
Bible and recreate America as a Theocratic
Union.
Under the Bush regime the lines of sepa
ration between church and state continue to
blur as religious zealots fight to force their
beliefs upon us.
Is it right for Evangelicals to be deprived
of their desire to worship in the way they
wish? No. Is it right for those who do not
share their faith to be forced to live by
Evangelical standards? Of course not. It’s
time for ultra-conservative Christians to
relinquish their fear and intolerance of the
rest of us and learn to live side by side in
peace. I
G
s