And if you were more familiar with Friedman's writings then you too would be well aware of that fact.

You're a brave man, pubby. I'd admit to a penchant for young boys before I admitted to being "more familiar with Friedman's writings"! That's courage of a rare order, to admit you spend time studying Friedman!

And Islamists - including Hamas - are indeed in a war against modernity

Good for them! Maybe they don't like it much. The Israelis don't have much use for it either, do they? And you gotta admire them. When they (the Israelis) pick a method of governing thier country, they choose one as opposed to the one which has advantaged Jews more than any other secular democracy.

But please, please, publicloaca, take that "war against modernity" and shove it. It's a meaningless and stupid thing to say, and only reveals your bigotry and lack of knowledge.

What is Zionism if not a "war against modernity", as the Israelis practice their atavisms, trying to rebuild the Holy Land according to the schemas of 19th century British Public-school Biblical geography?

omooex: "Like Friedman, you misinterpret the ideology of Hamas as the basis for Hamas' struggle."

I don't know where you get that incorrect assumption, but you are nonetheless wrong.

But you said:

"And Islamists - including Hamas - are indeed in a war against modernity."

You said this yourself.

In any case, you're right. I didn't mean to put Islamic in quotes, any more than I put the word modernity in quotes. But I have no doubt its what he meant; Islamist for such as Friedman is nothing but a convenient semaphore for Arab. This is the same man, who, as you can see further in the article, once told Charlie Rose that the US should go house to house and shove guns in the faces of all young Arab men--not Islamists. Here is the full quote:

"What they needed to see was American boys and girls going house to house, from Basra to Baghdad, um and basically saying, “Which part of this sentence don’t you understand?” You don’t think, you know we care about our open society, you think this bubble fantasy, we’re just gonna to let it grow? Well, Suck. On. This. That Charlie is what this war is about. We could of hit Saudi Arabia, it was part of that bubble. Could of hit Pakistan. We hit Iraq because we could."

I have no doubt from this statement that Friedman has very strong feelings about all muslims in general, especially Arab ones. I can't see how you would defend him.

But the reality is both you and Friedman fundamentally ignore settlement building because you treat it as some kind of ancillary element to the conflict. You said:

"I am in fact a strong critic of the Israeli settlements because I am fully aware of how much and why they undermine the peace process."

I'm not sure why you validate Israel's negotiations as a peace process when they have been colonizing the West Bank for thirty years without pause. They doubled their settler population in the West Bank between 1993 and 1999, just as they were supposedly involved in a peace process which was supposed to see the return of those very lands to Palestinians. This is like saying the US was in a peace process with native americans as it subsumed more and more of their land. And we all know where that ended up.

Friedman opines that Hamas' activities are a greater obstacle to a state solution than settlement building. There can be no greater obstacle--settlement building is at the core of the conflict. It predates the rise of Hamas and Israel has always found a convenient rationale to continue, even though the process endangers Israelis and almost guarantees that a two state settlement will never be possible.

You seem like a smart enough guy. I can't see how you'd defend Friedman. His disastrous support of the Iraq conflict--especially in light of the quote above-- should be more than enough for any sane person to automatically shy away from anything he has to say.

If I am not mistaken (as I so often am) that is a perfect, in fact the classic, example of what's called "Orientalism".

So what the hell do you call a culture, or rather, an ideology, that seeks to return the Jews to their supposed Biblical glory- Futurist?

What do you call an ideology which posits that Jews cannot live fully with anybody else except jews, and must be ruled by a hodge-podge of religio-legal mish-mosh and corruption dispensed, of course only by Jews- post-modernist?

And it's the way it comes so smoothly and greasily out of his mouth, as if he was saying something to be proud of.

Frankly, I'm fighting a war against modernity myself. Every day it gets more modern, I get older and fatter. Please, keep modernity away!

Gee, and what can we say about all those Christian Dominionists, and Rapturists, and Evangelicals? That they are eagerly embracing modernity?

What about all those "social conservatives" in the US? Are they embracing the latest information? And they want to return to a past which only exists in a particulary inane and mawkish subset of made-for-TV melodramas. Now that's really making peace with modernity!

omooex: "But you said:

"And Islamists - including Hamas - are indeed in a war against modernity."

You said this yourself."

Right. And in your mind this means I "misinterpret the ideology of Hamas as the basis for Hamas' struggle" ... how, exactly? You are repeatedly reading into my words incorrect assumptions.

omooex: "Islamist for such as Friedman is nothing but a convenient semaphore for Arab."

Again if you were more familiar with Friedman's writings you would know that your assertion there is incorrect as well. I recommend starting with "From Beirut to Jerusalem" - it's a bit dated now, but in it Friedman is quite clear that he views Arabs as a heterogeneous group where some are fundi-fanatics (Islamists) and others aren't. Just as in it he characterizes Israelis as a heterogeneous group where some are fundi-fanatics and others aren't.

omooex: "I have no doubt from this statement that Friedman has very strong feelings about all muslims in general, especially Arab ones. I can't see how you would defend him."

I don't defend Friedman's "Suck. On This." declaration, which I find indefensible. Again many of his writings and declarations are far more nuanced that that, however - indeed so much so that when initially he made his "Suck. On This." declaration I was surprised since it was so out of character with respect to so many other things he has said and written.

omooex: "But the reality is both you and Friedman fundamentally ignore settlement building because you treat it as some kind of ancillary element to the conflict."

"The reality" is nothing of the kind. Pay attention to what I'm actually saying - not what your evident prejudice keeps leading you to misinterpret what I'm saying.

omooex: "You said:

"I am in fact a strong critic of the Israeli settlements because I am fully aware of how much and why they undermine the peace process."

I'm not sure why you validate Israel's negotiations as a peace process when they have been colonizing the West Bank for thirty years without pause."

There you go again: I don't "validate Israel's negotiations as a peace process when they have been colonizing the West Bank for thirty years without pause" - at least not as a truly serious peace process. And nothing I've said - including what you just quoted from me there - indicates or otherwise demonstrates otherwise.

omooex: "Friedman opines that Hamas' activities are a greater obstacle to a state solution than settlement building. There can be no greater obstacle--settlement building is at the core of the conflict. It predates the rise of Hamas and Israel has always found a convenient rationale to continue, even though the process endangers Israelis and almost guarantees that a two state settlement will never be possible."

I don't agree with Friedman that Hamas' activities are a greater obstacle than the continual expansion of the settlements - with respect to being obstacles to peace, in my view they are roughly on the same level.

In any event, in my view such rankings are a pointless blame-game distractions - the settlements and terrorist activity are both obstacles to peace. And with respect to both sides, I won't that side seriously with respect to their claims of seriously trying to advance peace until that side gets their own house in order with respect to what they can do to seriously advance peace.