BEIT SHEMESH, Israel — Several thousand pro-democracy activists protested on Tuesday against violence by religious zealots trying to impose their religious code on a flashpoint town near Jerusalem. The rally in the town of Beit Shemesh was organized after an outburst of public anger when an eight-year-old girl said on national television that ultra-Orthodox men had spat at her on her way to school, accusing her of immodest dress. "We are struggling over Israel's character not only in Beit Shemesh and not only over the exclusion of women but against all the extremists who have come out of the woodwork to try and impose their world view on us," parliamentary opposition leader Tsipi Livni said in a keynote address. Some protesters held signs that read "We won't become another Tehran," alluding to the Islamic republic in Iran where most women are forced to cover their heads in public. President Shimon Peres said earlier, in broadcast remarks, about fears of rising religious extremism in Israel: "We are fighting for the soul of the nation and the essence of the state." "Today is a test in which the entire nation will have to mobilize to rescue the majority from the claws of a small minority that is chipping away at our most hallowed values," Peres said. "No person has the right to threaten a girl, a woman or any person in any way," he said. "They are not the lords of this land." Shouting "Nazis, Nazis," religious protesters in Beit Shemesh, clashed on Monday with police deployed to prevent zealots from attacking TV news crews reporting on tensions in the town, some 30 km (18 miles) from Jerusalem. Authorities further stoked anger among the zealots, who advocate gender segregation, by removing a sign urging women to avoid certain streets in areas where the ultra-religious live. SEGREGATION Some bus lines in religious neighborhoods nationwide are already segregated, with women sitting in the back of vehicles. Under Israeli law, they do not have to move to the rear but risk verbal and physical abuse from male passengers for refusing to do so. Some rabbis in Jerusalem have demanded that businesses avoid posting photographs of women or employing them in any of the shops patronized by the ultra-Orthodox. Though numbering only 10 percent of Israel's mostly Jewish population of 7.7 million, the ultra-Orthodox wield political clout in a country where no one party has ever won a parliamentary majority and coalition governments have always ruled. Many rabbis have insisted the incidents in Beit Shemesh were the acts of a fringe minority. Some rabbis, among them members of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's leading ultra-Orthodox coalition partner, the Shas party, have joined him in condemning the violence. Sarit Ramon, a secular resident of Beit Shemesh, said the situation in the town, which has a delicate mix of religiously observant immigrants living alongside Israelis embracing a more modern lifestyle, has been "catastrophic for years." "This didn't start today, but now unfortunately when a child is harmed and spat at, it creates noise," she told Reuters. "But when I told that I was spat at a year and a half ago, people raised an eyebrow, and that was about it." http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45795712/ns/world_news-mideast_n_africa/#.TwAqaSO1HZs ------------------- I hate those zealots. They seem to be just as r****ded as the guys in Saudi. They even seem to have similarly ugly beards. Why don't the Israeli zealots move in with the Saudi zealots and they can all open a gay community (not that there is anything wrong with that) without women? At least in Israel, there are open protests against this sort of extremism, and it is not the mainstream, as in some places in the Islamic world. But still, that this kind of thinking even exists nowadays is just crazy.
For info: Also, roughly 15% of Jews in Israel are considered ultra-orthodox and have an incredibly high birth rate. That's significant, because that doesn't just include the religious people, it only includes the ultra-religious. To put that into more context, there are slightly more non-Jews in Israel than there are ultra-orthodox Jews. To put that into even further context, these are usually the people involved in terrorism, vandalism, land theft and outright non-compliance with anything but Halakha (which IIRC is the Jewish equivalent of "Shariah Law").
I should add to that that I find fanatical atheists annoying as well. They have something in common with religious zealots, which is that they seem to be hell-bent on forcing their "I know better than you" on others. I'm fine with moderate agnostics and moderates of various religions. Moderate, to me, means respecting that someone else believes something else, as long as the same tolerance is extended by that someone.
I think immoral atheists are the dangerous ones, who believe there's no sense of morals or law because there's no God.
Everyone has a conscience... are you trying to say that the people who do not believe in God do not have proper direction? They can't tell right from wrong? They are not human beings?
If I understand da_juice correctly, he is saying that if people do not believe in an afterlife/God and therefore do not fear that their actions on earth will have consequences, their actions might be less moral and lawful than those of people who believe in an afterlife/God. I understand what he is saying, but I think that religious people on average do not act more moral or lawful than non-religious people.
I, evidently, did not make myself clear. What I tried to say is that fanatical atheists are a scary thought, perhaps more so than a religious extremist, because a religious extremist is at least fighting for a sense of order aline with divinity, whereas a fanatical atheist is more likely to be fighting in the name of a twisted violent ideology or for the sake of violence itself. That's not to say religious people are more or less moral than an atheist, but I'm personally more afraid by a Stalin or Pol Pot than an Osama Bin Laden or Joseph Kony. And that, is coming from an atheist himself
But how many fanatical Atheist do you know? And what are the terrible things that they do? They are annoying.
