zodiac15 Jun 2005

I'm curious: Why do you think this poem is as intolerant as Jew-hating? Because it presents some Muslims in an unflattering light, with the suggestion it's more than a few isolated Muslims she's talking about? And because that's what Jew-haters try to do with Jews?

Let me try to set your mind at ease: If Dovina's poem is a little, um, inaccurate or ignorant in parts, the concern of the raped woman is a real and widespread in the Middle East. Actually, I happen to be sitting in an internet cafe in the Kingdom of Jordan and there's a woman using the computer next to me. Let me ask her.

zodiac: If you were raped would you be afraid of some terrible repercussion from your husband, presumably a devout Muslim?

Nameless Muslim Woman: Oh yes, definitely.

So there you have it. Dovina's just told the semi-truth about a bad aspect of the Arabic world. If she hasn't included a lot of the good stuff about it, so what, and she probably doesn't hear a lot about that part. Neither have you, for that matter. And I notice you're not criticizing a lot of poems that point out America's bad aspects. It seems like you're suggesting any poem that doesn't point out an equal number of good and bad aspects of something is as intolerant as Jew-hating. Is that really what you want to say?

PS-About Jew-hating. Jews are, naturally, hated by practically everyone in this country. But then, Jews did simply take an entire, incredibly-useful piece of land that belong to Arabs, displacing its Muslim residents, and, ever since, regularly reneging on promises they've made to Arabic countries, like removing their hundreds of settlements from the sliver of land left to Palestinians - a sliver of land legally owned and occupied by Arabs since antiquity. Or, like the treaty promising Jordan water from Israel's three (and soon to be six) dams on the Jordan River, in exchange for the devastation wrought in Jordan by the River's decreased flow.

Anyway, would you say this hatred is, um, intolerant?