Thirdly and finally.

You attempt to justify the illegal Israeli occupation and it's mistreatment of children.

see the Weekend Australian of Saturday 27 November 2011
'Stone Cold Justice' by John Lyons.

Yesterday in Redcliffe Qld, a youth was committed to trial for using a slingshot to fire stones at two women.

He will follow the process.

There was no interrogation, no forced confession, no handcuffs nor shackles, he had able representation and evidence will be presented at his trial, in a civillian court before a civillian Judge. He's been charged under criminal law.

He won't automatically be sentenced to time in an adult prison.

Now our western consciense is clearly in play in this situation.

Your consciense, if you claim to be western, with your displayed attitudes shown in the Palestinians childrens situation, is in error or you have applied quite a different set of non-western liberal democratic morals.

'I think your moral reasoning is defective because you judge everyone’s morality by their stance on the Middle East conflict.'

Errr ... no I judge peoples' conscienses on how they apply their consiense to any situation.

I might remind you that you raised the odd-ball middle East morality in denigrating the operation of western consciense in western behaviours, because you believe only Jewish traditions represent Israel.
If you don't see that, just try to tell us how you can recconcile that Machol, as Israeli, is in any way representing Bedouin.

Whyever you'd do that is completely unfathomable.

imajulianutter, you said

"The Jewish community when claiming Israel as a Jewish state attempt to extinguish, in world opinion, the rights of a claim to Israeli statehood of Israeli Muslims, Christian and other communities.

You might have to agree these groups don't share the Cultural tradition of the traditional Jewish Machol Dance."

I don't share the cultural tradition of Australian aborigines, but I would never in a million years ask them to change their "Australian Dance Group" name to "Koori Dance Group". That would deny their Australian identity and be discriminatory.

Israel is and has been a Jewish state since 1948. Its citizens include Jews, Christians, Muslims, and atheists. Get over it!

Imajulianutter, what is with your obsession with Israel? What is wrong with having a Jewish state, particularly in a region where more and more countries are opting for an Islamic identity.
Yes, so it is OK to have a multitude of Islamic republics in the Middle East, often concomitant with the curtailment of basic freedoms on non-Muslims within their borders. No, so it is not OK to have a single Jewish republic in the same region??
About 20% of Israel’s population is not Jewish, but is predominantly Arab ( Muslim and Christian)
There are Arab members of parliament, Arab judges, Arabs in the diplomatic service, Arabic newspapers, independent Arab schools and Arabic is an official language. In the surrounding Arab countries there are no such Jewish equivalents, particularly as the Jews were ethnically cleansed from the Arab world . ( see p.37 in this attachment http://www.justiceforjews.com/jjac.pdf) . Of the roughly 900,000 Arab Jewish refugees (in essence they were Arab in culture and Arabic was their language) expelled from the various countries after 1948, most ended up in Israel. They are, and always were, indigenous to the Middle East. They and their descendents number well over 3 million, just over half the Jewish population of Israel. Little wonder that there is a prevailing view that what happened in 1948 was an exchange of populations with the surrounding Arab countries, much the same that occurred post-1945 in other parts of the world.
Yes, there is discrimination at various levels imposed on the Arab citizens of Israel, and it is officially sanctioned and it is a gross injustice. Yet despite this, the consensus is that as individuals, Israeli Arabs enjoy more rights and freedoms than their counterparts under various Arab regimes.

Just because my moral convictions are different than yours, Mishka, does not make them any less strong.

The whole idea of making things illegal is sick. The phenomena of states imposing themselves and their rules on everyone just because they happen to live in a particular area, is simply a form of bullying - it is immoral (how much more so given that no area on the face of the earth is free of this state or the other) and the blind acceptance of which, is a stark example of the decline of moral reasoning in our society.

It is not that states are totally illegitimate -they have their place as voluntary pacts of people who choose to defend themselves collectively. Those who want to participate in the state-thing may subscribe to whatever rules they want, but the state has no moral right to dictate its rules to others who have not agreed to participate in their game.

If people (or animals for that matter) who are not members of that defense-pact disturb the peace of members, then the state may consider them "enemies" and take necessary actions to stop them (that's what defense is all about after all), but the state has no right to interfere in the internal affairs of non-members.

Becoming a member of a state is a serious decision with numerous long-term implications, advantages and disadvantages. Apart from having one's life protected (to the best of the state's ability), these implications usually include welfare payments, health services, immunization, schooling and similar measures designed to bring up a person to become the type of citizen which the state desires.

Does the baby want to be part of this package deal? The answer is not obvious and the state has no basis to assume it will be in its favour.

As a baby (born or unborn) is technically unable to voice such a decision, s/he is represented by those closest to him/her, those who love him/her most and his/her best well-wishers - his/her parents, to whom s/he chose to be born (or in their absence, his/her grandparents).

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Having expressed your horror at the legitimacy of killing children, let me give an example: Mr. Abraham is told by God to take his son, his only son, his beloved son Isaac, to a certain mountain to be sacrificed there to God. However, the government of Canaan tells him "Stop. That's illegal" and puts Abraham in jail: does it truly serve Isaac's interest to have his father in jail and himself unsacrificed against God's request? Did he come to this world just to have fun - or in order to set an example? Wasn't the experience of walking together with his father up the mountain worth more than any other experience Isaac could have in life.

Is it the government's right to interpose itself between a man and his God and claim itself superior? If your answer is Yes, then you consider the state as your God and I have nothing further to say to you, but if it is No, then consider another example: Ahaz sacrificed his son to Moloch. If you say this should be illegal, then essentially you are saying that the state has a right to determine which God is the true God.

History is full of states imposing a specific religion on its populace while persecuting, torturing and executing those of other religions. Australia claims to be religion-neutral, but is it? As the pendulum in Australia is swinging away from Christianity, the Australian state is instead currently approaching the rule of the pseudo-religion of humanism.

Humanists would not admit to being a religion because they consider themselves atheists, but in fact, they consider man as their god. Their assumptions look like any other religious principles and should not be taken for granted. Some of them are:

* Life is a physical phenomena, determined primarily by the presence of breathing.
* Human life is superior than animal life.
* All men/women are equal.
* Living is the highest value.

I don't buy that! - and that places me in a religious minority here.

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In summary:

When an unbroken family is of a religion, or in general of a belief-system, other than the state's, it is their natural and unalienable right to not belong to that state and not introduce their children to that state. There in no moral justification in the world requiring them to adhere to the state's laws.

As the state is a secular, amoral institute, is can define "threat" at its pleasure, and if the state in question believes that the action of the above family threaten its members, then it may take actions against it (which may or may not be moral) - but not when the only "threatened" are the family's children, not being members of that state.

Should a state attempt to enforce morality (not that it actually can, nor is it its role), then it should go all the way, stoning adulterers, banning alcohol, meat, unhealthy food, and any form of abortion, chopping the hands of thieves - and more, depending on the specific religious views upon which it attempts to construct its morality (perhaps torture unbelievers or burn those who work on the Sabbath?).

However, what I say is that a state must not play God.

Unless you indicate otherwise, I take it that you do not consider religious persecution immoral, nor the slaughter and eating of animals.