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*sigh* I'm frustrated with this medium called English (I don't know any other) and my lack of (intelligence, wit, practice?) in using it to express myself inoffensively over THIS subject.

Alouette, please see that I'm not a moral myopic - I'm just trying to understand what to tell my kids about why some people choose to fight, and maybe die, for blood ties (tribalism), and others to choose to fight, and maybe die, over an idea. When I served in the American military, I was willing to fight for an idea - defending my freedom and my fellow Americans freedom; the idea that freedom is worth exporting, and that freedom is not reserved for certain peoples, while others are ineligible b/c of the their circumstances of birth. And please continue to give me the benefit of the doubt, for I too have a teenage son. I love him very much indeed.

I'm NOT trying to insult you, nor trying to offend any Arab moms out there either (for they could write the same thing back to me, no? - not that I would believe they are justified for feeling that way).

I don't have my mind made up; if I did, I would just be another rhetorical screamer here, using invective to turn hearts to my point of view.

I just don't understand how my country, the USA, is good enough to live in, good enough to raise kids in, but not good enough to teach my kids to fight for. I just don't understand.

"My son decided to join the IDF in order to defend our loved ones who happen to live there. How does that make hate the "highest good" in Alouette's society?"

Because it seems the decision to fight on your son's part is rooted in the idea of fighting for his tribe. It does not seem that your son is fighting for an idea. Your son, in effect, is setting an example to my son. And it is a distinctly new kind of example, in my experience. Should I teach my son to reject military service in the American military because our relatives overseas are under threat? Should I teach him to take oaths of service to another nation, oaths that may conflict with the oaths all American military service people are required to make? How is that good for America?

Furthermore, the example you set for me as a parent is that I teach my son that certain tribes, based on the homicidal/suicidal/insane actions of a minority, are genetically evil and inferior, and not to be seen as equal to my "tribe". How is that good for the American idea of freedom? How does that encourage American kids to be willing to fight for freedom?

Alouette - my growing concern, and it is growing, and it feels totally different than what I felt during the Cold War, is for my country's identity, and thus my own personal freedom. I believed what my 2nd grade teacher taught me about why so much death was in Europe - tribalism, which led to nationalism, which led to "justifiable" hate, which led to "justifiable" killing. And which, I believe, underlies the balkanized thinking rampant in Europe even today.

BTW, if I understand what you are saying, am I'm totally dead wrong to see Jews as a tribe, or that they behave in a "tribal" manner? Am I an Anti-Semite if I think the Jews, generally speaking, behave like a tribe?

(Now, for what its worth, this is a thread about the causes of Jew Hatred, after all. I'm not interested in promoting Jew Hatred, I'm interested in the pathway to ending it; I'm also interested in the pathway to ending Arab-hatred; I deeply suspect those two pathways have something in common; I deeply suspect that pathway involves making hard choices about what I say to my kids about what to believe - about tribalism and freedom.)

All that said, I have to hand it to you; your tone could have been so much more condemning toward me; thanks for listening the way you have. Please don't throw up your hands regarding me...:). (I spent alot of time in Ohio cornfields as a boy.;))

Am I an Anti-Semite if I think the Jews, generally speaking, behave like a tribe?

I think that yes, you are an Anti-Semite if you persist in force-fitting "generally speaking" Jews into your "evil tribalists" paradigm while at the same time trying to avoid describing the followers of Islam in the same way.

the example you set for me as a parent is that I teach my son that certain tribes, based on the homicidal/suicidal/insane actions of a minority, are genetically evil and inferior, and not to be seen as equal to my "tribe". How is that good for the American idea of freedom? How does that encourage American kids to be willing to fight for freedom?

That is NOT what I teach my kids. I don't teach my kids that Arabs are genetically evil and inferior, but Arabs do teach their kids that Jews are "pigs and monkeys". I do teach my kids that an entire society which raises its children to believe that it is the highest "good" to murder "infidels" in pizza parlors and schoolbuses is EVIL and must be STOPPED. These are not the actions of a "tiny minority" as you have deluded yourself into believing. This is part and parcel of the education that Arab Muslim children receive.

Your tap-dancing moral equivalence, and your refusal to recognize what is truly evil as EVIL, instead trying to dance around with this "tribalism" thing, is repugnant to me. BTW can you explain why Americans are in Iraq, if, according to you, we are fighting for an "idea" and not against evil people who are trying to destroy us?

You still have not explained why it is morally wrong to want to protect one's own family and loved ones. That should be a no-brainer.