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Menu There is no diplomatic solutionIsrael should declare three nos;
no to nuclear Iran, no to two-state solution, no to bi-national state
no to nuclear Iran, no to two-state solution, no to bi-national state
Actually, the values she lauds come out of the British and American Enlightenment (as opposed to the French) which, in turn, did come out of the Tankakh. Christianity didn’t implement those values before that. And Buddhism, Jainism and Taoism put forward those values 500 years before Christianity. I’m not sure when Zoroastrianism began doing that but these are certainly central values, eg., religious tolerance, eg. my old professor of philsophy of science at CCNY, KD Irani. I recently read that Spinoza is credited with a foundational role with regard to Enlightenment thought.
King Asoka of India did implement such a community based, pacifistic, compassion-based empire more than 2000 years ago. But, later Buddhist countries did not and do not necessarily behave that way, eg. Myanmar/Burma and Sri Lanka, today, even on the part of Therevadan Buddhist monks, in clear violation of the central tenets of their religion. Clearly, in the West, the Jewish and Christian bibles are important foundations, but there is something more there that needs to be unearthed.
How is it that this democracy we have, now western democracies, have lasted so long? Ironically, liberals have liked to refer to despotisms they disapproved of as unstable regimes but actually, throughout history, it’s been despotisms that last, and democracies, republics, attempts at even slightly egalitarian regimes, that have been short-lived and unstable, in ancient Israel, as well.