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Invoking Spinoza

Cornell West has a brave op-ed piece on the moral disaster that is the Middle East: As we witness another sad chapter in the Middle East — the loss of precious human beings, the presence of deep hatred and revenge, and the absence of Socratic questioning and empathy for all — the spirit of Spinoza haunts us. Where are the courageous thinkers who ask the hard questions that shatter our simplistic and sentimental frameworks of pure Israeli heroes and impure Arab villains (or vice versa) in the conflict? Is it possible for Jews to reject the ugly Israeli subjugation of…

Islam does this, Islam does that…

Been laid up up for a few days with a bum ankle. This has given me some time to catch up on my web reading. It doesn’t look good from here. Forgetting Iraq and Saudi Arabia, for the moment, I am saddened that calmer voices have been shouted down both here and in the Muslim world. We have made this an issue about Islam, and I too have been guilty of this. I apologise. I have recently been in the company of some really interesting thinkers listening to them debate the current state of Islam. Thinkers such as Reinhard Schulzeand…