Thinking About Israel/Palestine

Think-Israel, which arrived today in my email, is a publication that as I scan it reflects a hostile perspective towards Islam as a whole that is all too familiar:

http://www.think-israel.org

In contrast to this restricted perspective I hope we can move to a more balanced understanding of the tensions within both the Israeli community and the surrounding Islamic ones. I had the good fortune to receive an excellent survey of the development and varieties of Muslim thought -- Islamic Thought in the Twentieth Century:

http://www.ibtauris.com/ibtauris/display.asp?K=510000000051606&bic=HRDD*&ds=Islam&sort=sort_date/d&m=8&dc=94

by mainly British and American experts, which describes the considerable diversity in contemporary Islam -- the push pulls between the fundamentalists (Islamists) and secularists and the attempts by each to appeal to the traditionalists who are the great majority of the Muslims of the street who simply try to live a decent life according the the basic guidelines of the Qu'ran. My students from both these worlds give me hope that peace, if difficult, will be possible to achieve.
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"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy cited by Machiavelli)
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Ed Kent 718-951-5324 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
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