EDIT: Oh, and sorry for being so grouchy the other day. I wasn't running on much sleep.
What I was saying is the entire Middle East has had very poor success in establishing any kind of modern society. They've been been fighting amongst themselves in little factions under an oppressive religion. I mean modern Muslim nations only manage to govern themselves through oppressive dictatorships. It's a lousy culture because it built on a lousy religion. All I was saying is that, while Israel has done some very bad things, you can't really simplify this into a good vs. bad thing.
The point was that the Middle East was never really able to make it out of the middle ages. Sure the Ottoman empire was pretty impressive, and indicative of the fact that they were more organized than Europe during the 1300-1500s. The point was, it crumbled as the world began to modernize. Could it have happened anywhere? Yes? Does that matter? No.
Precisely.
Whoa, whoa! This is very important. Race and culture are NOT the same thing. Race is a very slight trend in the genetic make up of a persons from a certain region. Racism is the false idea that any particular race is genetically inferior with regard to social aptitude, mental acuity ect.
A culture is the pattern of ideals, values, philosophies that given group of people adopt, and is not defined by a particular race. (Although it may happen to identify with a race.) This distinction is very important. A culture can be bad, and many are. A radical Islam culture where women are treated as sub human is a bad culture, for example. Rampant American consumerism is hurting our culture. But being part of a predominantly bad culture doesn't make you bad. A culture is only a trend. I would go as far as saying that a very large percentage of racism can be attributed to people not making a clear distinction between culture and race.
Yes, but since you believe both of the religions involve are myths, you have no ground which to judge. Please see this thread for a more developed discussion.
http://forums.massassi.net/vb3/showthread.php?t=50164&page=5
Again there is the big difference between condemning a culture and condemning an entire nation or race. The deleterious effects of violence on the respective nation's cultures are causing more and more individuals to be indoctrinated into an irrational hatred of the other nation. If you had moved to Israel when you were ten, you'd probably be singing a different tune right now.