Actually, that’s not the reason why this new analogy is as terrible as all your others. The reason it’s terrible is that you’d be going into a site that has nothing to do with your faith and engaging in behavior whose primary purpose is to provoke. That is a horrible analogy for people who are going to a site central to their faith and praying in a manner in accordance with their beliefs, as were the women mentioned in the OP. Of course you’d be thrown out: your behavior would be totally disanalogous to the behavior described in the OP.
That’s not true. That said, I’m sorry that I’ve somehow offended you even though I honestly can’t ever even recall getting in an argument with you.
At this point, it’s rather obvious that you’re not willing to debate honestly and are trying to pretend you never made statements to that effect.
Now, I don’t know why you have such an immense amount of hostility towards me, but since you’re trying to pretend you didn’t make statements you said and aren’t willing to debate honestly I see no point in continuing the argument and think doing so would not be fair to the others in the thread who shouldn’t have to deal with the hijack.
You’re using the term improperly.
Note the bit you added in: “…where anyone who wants to pray can pray whenever and wherever they want.” That totally changes the meaning. Yet another of your favorite approaches is to pretend that someone is saying something stupid, instead of what they’re actually saying.
For you to accuse me of dishonest debating is rich.
Edit: and I’m using the ad hominem term entirely appropriately. Instead of dealing with the debate point, you tried to make the debate be about me, about where I live, and tried to suggest that I couldn’t have a credible opinion on the OP based on who I am. That’s precisely what an ad hominem is. Glad to educate you!
You seem to have a fascination with me that I don’t share with you.
I’m genuinely surprised you were so offended by my last question since it wasn’t intended to be offensive. I merely asked if you’d visited the area to see if you had an understanding of the land and the people rather than what is gleaned by some hastily reviewed articles on the interwebs.
At this point I’m not even sure what you believe on this subject so much as your desire to have the opposite belief of mine, so I’m going to end this hijack.
If you want to continue to engage me, I’d recommend going to the pit otherwise it would be unfair to the others on this thread.
And no, I never said you had no right to an opinion based on who you were or where you were born.
If the Western Wall/al-Aqsa mosque aren’t government-owned, then by whatever god you choose to believe in they should be. Eminent-domain that shit.
The Israeli government disagrees with you and, with all due respect, they’re in a vastly better position to judge who should run it.
Not remotely; rather, you seem to have a very high opinion of your own fascination that I don’t share with you. You keep turning this dispute into something personal, when it’s not; if you’d stop making these terrible arguments, I’d have no dispute with you.
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I wasn’t talking about who runs it, I’m talking about who owns it. Notice that you keep quoting people using one word and replacing it with the other.
I guess there’s no middle-eastern analog for the concept, since the lines between church and state aren’t as clearly drawn, but if a western-style democratic government suddenly found itself in charge of Israel, the land underneath the mosque and the wall would be considered federally owned, and all citizens would have equal access. If the waqf refused to abide by that rule, it’d find a new waqf that would.
Churches, synagogues, and mosques in the US would have more flexibility to restrict access since they’re privately owned.
You can wring your hands about how that’s not how things work over there, and I’d agree, but we’re talking a pure hypothetical driven by post #2.
Oy, Vey.
Please, read first about the dangers of Jerusalem: The Jerusalem Syndrome is real.
So - the religion most discriminated against in Israel is non-orthodox Judaism. The Wailing Wall was a public place that has slowly been appropriated by an ultra-orthodox organization. The fight - and this is a political fight is about the place of Reform and Conservative Judaism in Israel. The Ultra-Orthodox see them as much more dangerous to their monopoly than secular Jews, or any other religion.
While some regard worship at the Wall as close to idolatry, there is no question that it raises the tempers of many. Fortunately enough, only Jews quarrel at the site.
I may add that there are multiple conflicts in Jerusalem over places of worship. The Church of the Holy Sepulchre (the site of the purported Resurrection of Christ) is contested between at least 6 Christian denominations and violence flares up regularly there, followed by periods of quiet (during which intrigue rules). The Temple Mount - site of Al-Aqsa and Omar mosques - is the 3rd most important Muslim religious site (after Mecca and Medina) and is prohibited by Israeli secular law for Jewish prayer. It’s easier there since most Orthodox Jews forbid prayer there too, on theological reasons, but still there are many Jews trying to pray there and getting arrested (or at least remanded). And, by the way, the area is now managed by Jordanian religious authorities, which are in an yet-unsolved conflict with the Palestinian Authority.
So, the bottom line is that one cannot have “freedom of religion” in Jerusalem and not risk a blood-bath. Up to now, the secular courts in Israel have done a reasonable good job.
The Israelis don’t own it and have never claimed they owned it.
The only Israelis who did so were some idiot soldiers who immediately after conquering the area in the Six Day War started putting up Israeli flags. They were immediately ordered to take them down and the Waqf was called up by Moshe Dayan who personally apologized for the insult.
The Israelis don’t own it any more the US “owns” the Mormon temple and even then the US would have firmer ground since the US control of Utah is universally recognized whereas virtually no one recognizes Israel’s annexation of East Jerusalem, which why everyone except the Israelis insists the capital of Israel is Tel Aviv and why, to the best of my knowledge, not a single government has moved their embassy to Jerusalem despite repeated requests from the Israelis.
Er… a western-style democratic government is in charge of Israel.
No, that’s not true. Using your logic the underneath the Great Mormon temple in Salt Lake City would be considered federally owned and all citizens who want to enter can.
That’s not the case.
Er…they can’t just find “a new Waqf.” Do you realize what it is?
The Israelis haven’t expelled members of the Waqf for openly endorsing suicide bombing against Sbarros and you think the Israeli government is going to kick out the Waqf for cooperating with them to co-ordinate visits by various different groups to the area where it’s made sure that no group gets excluded?
And based on property laws of the Ottoman Empire and the Kingdom of Jordan when the area was conquered it “privately owned” or at least as “privately owned” as can be by the Waqf.
Israel has recognized those laws and has always given considerable autonomy to religious groups in charge of those areas.
They don’t like having situations like when Ariel Sharon decided to deliberately provoke a war.
First, consider that that’s not my analogy; it’s Ibn Warraq’s terrible one, that I was trying to doctor. Frankly, I think that analogies are not the right form for arguing this. We can debate the exact situation in question.
And in the situation in question, Orthodox Jews conduct rituals at the site 24/7. Other Jews also consider the site holy and conduct rituals there. Is there any reason to consider the claim of the Orthodoxy to be definitively superior to the claim of the others?
I don’t see any reason to consider it so. As such, this is one of those situations in which accommodation is necessary: everyone sincerely engaged in important activity without deliberate provocation as its primary purpose ought to be allowed to do so. Those who cannot worship around others are free to worship elsewhere.
Beside the point. From the OP’s article:
This was not a Waqf action. This was an action by the Israeli government: arrest by Israeli police in accordance with regulations put forth by the Israeli government. These regulations favor one Jewish group’s worship at this place at the expense of another group of Jewish worshipers.
Yes. Several reasons. Orthodox Judaism has existed for a few thousand years. Reform is about 100 years old. Also, Israelis as a whole, whether secular or religious, eschew the Reform. It just doesn’t resonate. Israelis figure if you’re not very religious, just be non-religious, don’t play at religion by creating a new one and pretend it to be Judaism.
Those women wearing tallit at the wall were a deliberate provocation, and they knew that it was a deliberate provocation. Deliberate provocation was the primary purpose of them showing up there.
I’m not talking about the Israelis, I’m talking about my hypothetical government. If the waqf has a deed to the land, that may be different, but their presence there probably predates the concept, and ownership has changed hands so many times. When they started managing the land, they were the government, no?
That’s not my logic. The Mormon temple was built by a private entity on a land purchased with private funds and built with private funds. Except for an eminent domain scenario, the US government has no claim to the building or the land.
On the other hand, who funded the mosque? I’ve been flipping through wiki pages and I can’t frickin’ tell. It was worked on at so many points throughout history under so many different government bodies, but it’s not like St. Peter’s Basilica where you can point to a single entity.
That’s actually a good analogy, though… much better than the Mormon temple. What if the US suddenly found itself running Vatican City? Catholic clergymen would become government employees, and the Basilica would become public land. Catholics could wail and gnash their teeth but equal access means equal access.
Not entirely, but I assume it’s a bunch of people. Did anyone tell Henry VIII that he couldn’t just find a new group of people to run the churches in England? People who agreed with him politically? Because he sure as shit did.
Well, again, we’re not talking about the Israelis.
There may be a legal argument here that I’m wholly unqualified to understand, so I’ll concede that you may have something here, based on Ottoman Imperial property law.
The first reason is wholly uncompelling. As for the second reason, I don’t find it any more compelling (religion isn’t a majority-rule kind of thing), but even if it were, I find it dubious. Can you cite this belief of Israelis?
Cite - I am Israeli. I know how it is. Reform have been trying to make inroads in Israel for 40 years or so. No success. Miniscule number of followers.
If you don’t believe me, ask some other Israelis on the forum. Alessan, etc.
I have no doubt that some Israelis are contemptuous and dismissive toward other Jews, even going so far as to play the not-a-real-Jew card. My question is whether that attitude is common among “Israelis as a whole.” A couple other people saying the same thing won’t cut it; what would cut it is some sort of polling data.
Here is the U.S. State Department’s review of the subject.
It makes plain two issues. First, that the freedom of religion in Israel is very different from, and much more limited than, freedom of religion in the United States:
And secondly, non-Orthodox Jews seems to have a particularly rough time:
Anyway, there’s a lot of good information there.
“The temple I don’t go to is the correct one!”
