Challenger, teddyearp, Moonglow, et al,
It never ceases to amaze me how this scenario is played out over and over again, through history. It was in the 14th Century, the time of the "golden sacrificial penny," that the German Jews were subject to ethnic cleansing. And it has only been ≈ 500 years when King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella expelled the Jews from Spain. And it was in the very late 13th Century that England expelled the Jews; and they were not allowed to return untile the time of Oliver Cromwell in the mid-17th Century.
There was no great love affair between the Central Europeans and the Jewish People.
BTW: The idea of American Jews is confusion... The confusion originates from the Jewish Community. In the last half century of the 20th Century, the Jews in America started to make ill-defined distinctions:
A Portrait of Jewish Americans
Findings from a Pew Research Center Survey of U.S. Jews 1 OCT 2013
• “Jews by religion”
• “Jews of no religion”
• "Jews that do not identify with any particular Jewish denomination"
(AKA: less-traditional Judaism)
"Secularism has a long tradition in Jewish life in America, and most U.S. Jews seem to recognize this: 62% say being Jewish is mainly a matter of ancestry and culture, while just 15% say it is mainly a matter of religion. Even among Jews by religion, more than half (55%) say being Jewish is mainly a matter of ancestry and culture, and two-thirds say it is not necessary to believe in God to be Jewish."
PEW POLLING AND ANALYSIS
Poll: Most Palestinians want to eliminate Israel
Less than 30% back two-state solution, though most are opposed to violent resistance, and Hamas seems to have gained little support from kidnapping
BY
TIMES OF ISRAEL STAFF June 25, 2014, 4:55 pm
74
"Marking a notable shift in Palestinian public opinion, 60 percent of the population surveyed in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip (55% and 68%, respectively) said that the five-year goal “should be to work toward reclaiming all of historic Palestine, from the river to the sea,” according to the poll, a position meaning the elimination of Israel. Meanwhile, less than 30% (31% in the West Bank, 22% in Gaza) would like to “end the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza to achieve a two-state solution.”
They have been anti-Jew for hundreds of years.
(COMMENT)
It is not necessarily the case that "any" argument on the basis of religion or culture makes for good logic with or differentiation. The Arab Palestinians
(obviously) associate themselves with Islam; even though they may not be practicing the tenants of Islam.
The conflict is about power, influence, and greed.
Most Respectfully,
R