SAM HARRIS: if ever a state organized around a religion was justified, it is the Jewish state of Israel, given the world's propensity for genocidal anti-Semitism.

Sam Harris's new essay on Islam and liberalism,which is worth reading in full, contains this observation, which has its merits..

http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/islam-and-the-future-of-liberalism

"Consider the position of Israel, which is so regularly vilified by the Left. As a secularist and a nonbeliever--and as a Jew--I find the idea of a Jewish state obnoxious. But if ever a state organized around a religion was justified, it is the Jewish state of Israel, given the world's propensity for genocidal anti-Semitism. And if ever criticism of a religious state was unjustified, it is the criticism of Israel that ceaselessly flows from every corner of the Muslim world, given the genocidal aspirations so many Muslims freely confess regarding the Jews. Those who see moral parity between the two sides of Israeli-Palestinian conflict are ignoring rather obvious differences in intent."

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