An Egyptian court in Cairo has upheld a ruling that any Egyptian man who marries an Israeli woman should be barred from military service and stripped of their citizenship in order to rid the country of “disloyal” elements.
The law appears to conflict with existing Egyptian law, but lawyer Nabih el-Wahsh (who brought the action) insists it is needed to ferret out those “disloyal to Egypt and the Arab world.”
There are about 30,000 Egyptians married to Israeli women.
While the ruling would still have to be adopted by the government (a bizarre process that allows courts to make such political recommendations), it is yet another example of the extremism and hatred in this region. On the Israeli side, extremists have taken the same attitude toward Israeli women dating Arab men.
For the story, click here.
BIL,
Google and Wikipedia have made it way easier to pull out little factoids. Although I learned that one in about three different books and an issue of Readers Digest that came out when I was in 7th grade, being able to link people to the actual hymn is nice.
By the way, there’s a recipe in one of the Papazian Home brew books (I think it’s the Joy of Home Brewing) for making both bappir and the beer from the hymn.
lol
Now that was cool! And thanks, Gyges. I have learned something new today (which makes it complete).
BIL,
Think more Sumerian
http://www.piney.com/BabNinkasi.html
Bappir being bread made from malted barley.
I’m kinda with you there, but I couldn’t make a bread stick and beer joke about Bob or Zeus. Maybe I should have gone with Dionysus or Bacchus?
BIL,
FSM sort of falls in the same category that pirates, zombies, and the word mojo: Stuff that I liked before it was cool.
I wish that American Pop culture didn’t feel the compulsive need to beat you over the head with every slightly quirky thing that becomes even marginally mainstream.
And as a statistical matter, the 2005 edition of the CIA World Factbook lists these numbers for self identifying worshipers by tradition:
1) Christians – 2,116,909,552
2) Muslims – 1,282,780,149
3) Hindus – 856,690,863
4) Buddhists – 381,610,979
5) Sikhs – 25,139,912
6) Jews – 14,826,102
7) Others – 814,146,396
8) Non-Religious – 801,898,746
9) Atheists – 152,128,701
But keep in mind that comes from the CIA.
Fair enough, Gyges.
My intent though was less to disagree with Bruce than to agree with you.
(May your inner FSM provide you with endless spiritual bread sticks and good beer.)
Buddha,
To be fair, I believe Bruce actually agrees with you (to a certain extent).
I’m just willing to bet that when he typed out “Judaism is one of the few religions that asserts that it is not the exclusive path to righteousness…” His list of religions to consider went:
Judaism
Christianity
Islam
Atheism
and stopped. This is admittedly an assumption, but it’s one based on my experience with how religion is thought of in the US (where Bruce practices law).
Gyges knows of which he speaks.
Or maybe you’ve heard the Yiddish proverb that “a half truth is a whole lie.”
Anyone, anyone, who says they have an corner on absolute truth is simply lying to you and to themselves, no matter what religious tradition they claim as their basis. So-called professors of absolutes are blind to the nature of compassion and the suffering that desire brings all. Or in the words of Nobel Prize winner Octavio Paz, “Believing ourselves to be possessors of absolute truth degrades us: we regard every person whose way of thinking is different from ours as a monster and a threat and by so doing turn our own selves into monsters and threats to our fellows.”
The absolute truth? As a philosophical Buddhist, I have no idea what that is. But I do believe Niels Bohr was correct in this assessment: “The opposite of a correct statement is a false statement. The opposite of a profound truth may well be another profound truth.”
There are many paths to the Buddha nature within. Or the Holy Spirit. Or the inner Flying Spaghetti Monster. Yahweh’s Breath. The Hand of Allah. A name is simply a name. But what is in a name?
It’s not “who” one worships or even so much “how” (with the exception of the manifestly evil human sacrifice), but “what” one worships that defines a human. Good wisdom is where you find it.
Bruce,
Again, I know some Buddhists who would like a word with you, as well as some Wiccans, various other pagans, animists and let’s not forget the Church of the SubgGenius.
(Religion doesn’t equal Judaism, Christianity, and Islam)
Judaism is one of the few religions that asserts that it is not the exclusive path to righteousness (for those not born into the faith). “The righteous of all nations shall have a place in the world to come.” Tosefta Sanhedrin 13:2. It does restrict inter-marriage, however. Deut. 7:3-5; Ex. 34:16. The difference is that the Torah teaches that G-d expects greater observance from Jews to be considered righteous (613 commandments vs. 7). Intermarriage with someone who does not share these requirements can cause the Jew to fall short of his or her expectations. It is for this reason, also, that Judaism does not proslytize.
Ahem,
“isn’t antithetical to religion”
Bruce,
False equivalency is a hell of a drug. You’d have a point if the doctrine that called for the imprisonment, torture, and eventual death of those people relied on Atheism to justify it’s actions. However, they weren’t killing in the name of atheism, they were killing in the name of Communism.
Also, atheism isn’t antithetical religion. Just ask any number of practicing Buddhists, and Unitarian Universalists.
Moran wrote: “Tolerating and excusing this tribal/religious nonsense will be the death of us all.”
Right, those Atheistic Khemer Rouge guys in Cambodia would never have done anything like this at all — notwithstanding that they killed 1 million people for being educated, religious, or just non-Communist.
Religion is not the problem. Power-hungry politicians who distort religion (or any other “ism”, including atheism and communism) for their own gain, or to divide and conquer a population, are the problem.
Is there no-way to just fence off the Middle East/Israel and just let them duke it out? Then we’d be rid of both problems.
Tolerating and excusing this tribal/religious nonsense will be the death of us all.
I believe that historically, Jewish lineage is traced through the wife not the husband. This might explain the unhappiness of both Egypt and Israel with having Jewish women marrying Egyptian and, as explained in the link in an earlier article the Professor posted. “…minority men and with migrant workers”. Miscegenation muddies the waters if ethnic/racial purity to build political States upon is the desired basis.
Someone that knows more about Jewish law than I do (which would be practically anyone) please correct my understanding if I am incorrect.
Yeah, right … that’s gonna solve all the problems … these Egyptians must have been exposed to the teabagger plague … there’s no known cure
According to the universal declaration of human rights everyone is entitled to a nationality. It seem to me that Egypt is making these people stateless.
And … 30,000 Egyptian men are married to Israeli women? That’s an interesting factoid in itself.
This is crazy and our biggest concern down south is illegals. Wow, what a contrast.