TM;
I slipped up..meaning to say Talmud, when I said Torah..but even there Christians would rarely if ever have the Torah (Penteteuch) as a "stand alone" book. Note: I would like to have a Talmud, I understand there is much wisdom to be found there.
I did have the King David Hotel in mind when I said "I haven't heard of a SUICIDE bombing between Christians and Jews IN YEARS, and 1946 is quite a few years compared to the most recent Muslim suicide bombings. That is not to say that the bombing of the KG Hotel was justified (it wasn't) and of course, it was not a SUICIDE bombing. For their trouble, 2 of the perps were wounded, all were rounded up and prosecuted.
The attack was against the British Mandatory Headquarters, housed in the KD Hotel. Some small measure of blame goes to the boss there, Sir John Shaw. The bombing was preceded by a phone call to the Mandatory headquarters explaining that it was about to happen, and that he should evacuate the building. He said (paraphrased) " I'm not going to let the Jews tell me what to do", and did not evacuate.
I am in no way defending the bombing by a small splinter group who were roundly condemned by the "Exodus" group, knowing such acts of violence would severely damage their credibility in seeking an independent state...just as bombings do toward the Muslims today.
Shaw is guilty only in so far as a school principal would be today if he/she did not respond to a credible bomb threat and had students killed. Since the bombing could not help the state builders efforts and killed many Jews as well as British & Arabs, the splinter group explanation sounds as good as any...being as Jews are not normally fanatically suicidal.
TM, we will probably disagree about who stole who's land until we are both planted..but I look at it as the Jews reclaiming their land from a bunch of "squatters". I can read with my own eyes their title deed to the disputed land. The "Palestinians" (a recently contrived nationality) have already found a home..the land that the Muslim neighbors lost in their attempts to "rub out" Israel. It would be indeed abetter world if ALL victorious peoples were, in the interests of peace..willing to hand back fairly won territories as large as the Sinai Penninsula and the West Bank plus the Gaza strip. The whole world KNOWS these territories were returned in a trade for "peace". Israel kept their word and handed the land over..have the Arabs kept their word ?
Suppose the Muslims had been victorious, could we expect them to be so understanding and generous ?
