Israel’s First Bedouin Diplomat Visits Santa Barbara

So which Muslim nation would tolerate a 20% Jewish minority?

Rev, another question is which Muslim nation would tolerate the mere presence of ANY other faith/religion? :) henry

Kind of a weird statistic to pursue, revisionist. After all, Jews only make up about 2% of the US population -- and we have the world's second largest contingent. And the high range of total Jewish population in the world is only about 18 million. Contrast that with the approximately 23 million Sikhs in the world.

So the impact of Jews on almost any general population will be minimal, no matter the level of, as you say, tolerance.

That said, it would be hard to dispute that Muslin nations tend to favor their own, and the reality that like favors like.

It's not who you know, its who Bedouin? No, wait... The enemy of my enemy is my friend, that's it.

Time Magazine reported on Bedouin disaffection in Egyptian Sinai, where Bedouins are in the majority. Some informants yearned for the good old days of Israeli occupation. The article's authors later found themselves in the hot seat for reporting such Bedouin sentiments. The North Sinai local council (apparently non-Bedouin) "shouted demands for the names of sources and locations. They expressed indignation at the mention of pro-Israel Bedouin and the report that some Bedouin even cheered for Algeria (Egypt's fiercest soccer rival)...." Chilling.

And it's not like Israel is nice to the Bedouins, restricting their movements and all.

Well, that part of the world is big on stratification, of persons, families, clans, tribes.... Israel may be better than some countries in that respect, as bad as it is. But if you're not Jewish (for example, an average American taxpayer supporting Israel) don't expect anything like gratitude or respect.

Religious minorities did very well in Muslim lands - the history of muslim rule has been very tolerant of other religions. It is only recently that we've seen violence and intolerance by muslims - and that is a direct result of occupation, colonization and oppressive dictators installed by western countries.
This is history. Verifiable and accepted by respected scholars.

Muslim countries accepted Jewish populations fleeing the Christian Inquisitions and persecutions in medieval Europe. Some of medieval civilization's greatest achievements took place in Muslim Spain, where Jews were part of a scientific and artistic blooming. Many Jews came to hold political office in Muslim countries all the way up to 20th century Ottoman Turkey.

"occupation, colonization and oppressive dictators installed by western countries." -jaysaxena

This is the only issue we need to concern ourselves with because it is the primary cause of the violence we see today, throughout the world. Israel, specifically, institutes these practices against Palestine. Occupation - checkpoints, fences, blockades, concentration camp-like conditions - Check. Colonization - Israeli Settlements - Check. Installed Dictators - Hamas was created by Israel to help defeat the Fatah - Check.

If Israel wasn't occupying Palestine and taking their land and resources little by little, we wouldn't be seeing the kind of violence against Israel that we do.

jaysax and MacM make some very interesting points. As Americans, we tend to think that world history began roughly 200 years ago. But if we study slightly more distant history, we can certainly find instances of Muslim societies coexisting with Jews and other non-Muslim communities.

However, I don't think that it is fair to say that modern Muslim intolerance is a "direct result of occupation, colonization and oppressive dictators installed by western countries". These may be contributing factors in some circumstances. But it would be a terrible mistake to view Muslims as passive "victims" of Western culture. Such simplistic expressions of cause and effect are unhelpful and historically innaccurate - as much as Noam Chomsky might like you to believe otherwise.

Brett