Maybe it's just late but (even) I find it a little hard to follow the convoluted reasoning by which the author reaches her conclusions.
Just as we don't have a problem distinguishing between the "regime" in Iraq and the Iraqi people and preferred folks draw some distinction between the US Government (under the Evil Clintonistas) and the American People, I fail to see how it is the State of Israel is somehow exempt from standing on its own merits and gets to play the victim of anti-Semitism without FIRST justifying how its actions are singularly "Jewish" in nature.
Personally, I think the State of Israel accomplishes this defamation more often than not when defending itself -- and its more heinous actions -- as a "Jewish" state.
It's much like our nation's claiming the special protections of the Almighty and calling itself "Christian" even as abortion remains the most common surgical procedure in the land and we yet export our Culture of Death and "saving graces of Western materialism" abroad and seek to "keep up with the Joneses" where the manufacture, sales and intentional destruction of human life for research purposes is concerned.
Given Father Abraham's petitioning the Almighty on behalf of the 50, the 30, the perhaps only 10 good people of Sodom -- and receiving the Almighty's assurance that He would not destroy Sodom if it meant killing even 10 good men in the process -- I don't always understand the "Jewish" nature of some of the State of Israel's actions. In fact, given the profound respect (and love) I have for the Jews as chosen by God to bring forth and recognize the Messiah, I find repugnant the notion that ALL of the State of Israel's actions always somehow equate to "Jewish".
Beginning with the terrorism used to lever the State into being in the first place. It was a bad precedent to set for folks at the I.R.A. and elsewhere. Few realize they don't get to play either the Jewish card or the Holocaust card and tend to get carried away with the efficacy of terrorism.
As a Catholic familiar with the "more Catholic than the Pope concept" ... sometimes I wonder that the State of Israel doesn't consider itself somehow "more Jewish than the Practicing Jews".
How else to explain the Knesset's holding forth on whether or not Orthodox Judaism is essentially equal to Reformed or Conservative Judaism? With events like that, I sometimes wonder that the State of Israel doesn't consider itself a Magisterium of sorts.
It's all very confusing ... particularly given the fact I don't believe any Jew could possibly defend the utterly immoral AND yet be a practicing Jew anymore than I believe there's such a thing as a pro-abort Catholic.
Such a shame is it not that Israelis don't agree to commit national suicide by unilaterally "giving" West Bank and Gaza to the Muslims. Surely this would lead to peace and cessation of Jihad! </sarcasm> And as far as the Christian mumbo jumbo in your post, Israel would not exist today if Jews had not been slaughtered and driven out of a Christian continent during WW2. And I think even you know this.
Do you mean that the acts against Israel aren't anti-semitic because the Knesset hasn't published a paper defining the term "Jewish" to your satisfaction? The actions of the State of Israel have been in response to aggression and were not the origin of the aggression.
Perhaps you feel that in the light of the persecution of the Jews and the annihilation of whole Jewish communities throughout history, it would be considered more "Jewish" for the state of Israel to lay down arms and allow itself to be led like lambs to the slaughter by its enemies, which would doubtless cause you great sorrow in the light of the profound respect (and love) that you have for the Jews.
There is nothing "immoral" about preserving your own life under attack and in fact Pikuah nefesh (saving life) is one of the pillars of Judaism.
If anything we are a Meta-Christian Nation, where the "Meta " includes all the Christian Sects, Diests, Jews, Muslims, occasionaly G-d Fearing agnostics, and utopians of various exotic stripes,
The US has always been a "religious" state. It is impossible NOT to a religious state. The only real question is what "religion"?
Israel is a JEWISH PLACE. Note I said PLACE.
As the Creator mapped and set the world, that is the way the is.
Once again, Israel is subjected to the criticisms of "true conservatives" while Rhodesia and South Africa were considered beyond reproach for doing the very same things (indeed, anyone who criticized them was a "commie").
You have obviously never read your Bible (at least the front part of it). Do you want to know what a truly Jewish state would do? I'll tell you.
It would expel the entire non-Jewish population and allow non-Jews to live there only if they were practicing Noachides and even then only during periods when the yovel ("jubilee") year was in effect.
It would destroy all non-Jewish places of worship just as they were to have destroyed the high places of pagan "gxds" in the Biblical era.
Perhaps you are unfamiliar with the Biblically-mandated wars of annihilation against the Canaanites and `Amaleq, in which every man, woman, child, and even animal was to be put to the sword? Perhaps you are unaware that in the case of an `ir niddachat (a Jewish city that had strayed after idolatry) not only was it to be treated the same way but destroyed and never again rebuilt?
It is amazing how ignorant so many chr*stians are of "their own" Bible. Doubtless you find all this quite crude and horrific by chr*stianity's more liberal standards, but unless you are a religious liberal who believes the Bible is the work of men you're stuck with all this (even if you believe the rules changed two thousand years ago, which is hardly a conservative position).
Askel's attempt at a sleight of hand.
According to Askel, a practicing member of the Catholic Church questioning the orthodoxy of the head of the Catholic Church, is as outrageous as the head of the State of Israel questioning the orthodoxy of a member of the State of Israel! While at the same time granting that it's theoretically possible for the head of the State of Israel to be an enemy to Practicing Jews!!!!
Askel, I can certainly understand you being quite busy with life's responsibilities. Therefore I will plead that you answer the following question with one word.
In keeping with the strictest Catholic theology, is it theoretically possible for a member of the Catholic Church to be more Catholic than the Pope?
Yes or No?