Paul,

Just because a proposition has minority support that doesn't mean that either (a) it is wrong or (b) it is not viable. I am certain that with your knowledge of history you could think of a few instances where this has been the case.

As for your fairly tedious claim of skewing, perhaps you ought to consider the possibility - as I have suggested already - that the project of a Jewish homeland is very dear to me and I want it to succeed? The fact that I pay attention to it is because it is the most advanced nation in the region, the one with the best chance of
success and importantly, one whose policies we can influence.

Still, once again I suggest you write an article about Islamic states and get it published here; then I shall respond on that topic. As for you comment that I criticise only Israel and not the Islamic dictatorships, that is a falsehood even on the comments in this thread.

As for being requisite for any modern state, of course I would prefer all states to be modern. My point is that a state is being deceitful if it claims to be modern yet engages in discriminatory practises.

Lev - "you can have a jewish homeland in a secular state". Are you envisaging a ghetto-style homeland, modelled after the Amish in Pensilvania and elsewhere? Or are you envisaging a country where Jews do not find thenselves at the mercy of any dominent group? Even recently in Australia Jews were spoken about publicly in conspiratorial tones, and there was no public repudiation.
Jews are probably present in all secular states, but the impetus for a homeland knows only one focus - their traditional homeland.
And what has been going on in their traditional homeland for 1400 years?
My support for a state in Palestine which does not discriminate against Jews rests on the understanding of Islam's attitude towards Jews - that of murderous discrimination, most of the time, for the last 1400 years. Those building the present Jewish state had to remove the former government, and its supporting population, and succesfully oppose the establishment of the type of government envisaged by the neighbouring Muslim countries, to succeed.
In these circumstances, a state which discriminates in favour of Jews, and against their former oppressors, in this place overwhelmingly Muslims, was the only option available.
And until Islam accepts that it has no right to discriminate against Jews, Christians or anyone else, a homeland for Jews in their traditional homeland has to discriminate against Muslims. Returning the favour, until Islam's desire for oppressing has been removed. Permanently. In this case, Israel is a state which accepts all religions, including Islam, but refuses to allow any one religion to dictate laws - one can, for instance, buy pork in Israel quite openly, much to the annoyance of the ultra religious. It refuses, of course, Islam's demand for Sharia to be enforced. It is only a contradiction in that not all Jews are religious - some are athiests, but that hasn't stopped their oppressors from mass murder. In Israel, Jews should be the dominant group, to safeguard the interests of Jews against their former oppressors.
And have you heard about the expulsion of Christians from Islamic-controlled Bethlehem currently going on?

Camo,

I envisage a secular, democratic state where people of a particular religion can describe as 'home'. If a section of the religion want to live like the Amish, well good for them.

It is a matter of extraordinary historical inaccuracy to describe Islam's attitude towards Jews as being "murderous discrimination, most of the time, for the last 1400 years".

Your claim that Israel is a state which refuses to allow any one religion to dictate laws is demonstrably false, as this thread has already shown. As a trivial example, one cannot even have a civil marriage in Israel.

(nota bene: A person who claims that they are Jewish and an atheist is engaging in a contradiction; at best they should claim they have Jewish heritage and that they are an atheist).

Bethlehem? It seems to be more a matter of emigration and birth-rates than systematic expulsion.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bethlehem#Recent_events

Lev - thanks for the link to the wikipedia site, although you failed to mention that even that story talked more about some Muslim's effortd to impose sharia on the christians in Bethlehem, and use houses of christians to attack Israel from, as being prominent the reasons for christian emigration. I haven't had the opportunity to check my source for the reasons for the christian emigration from Palestinian-controlled Bethlehem, but when I find it, I'll let you know.
As to 'murderous intolerance for much of the last 1400 years', I'll stand by that claim. Just as some christian (and some athiest) writers in Europe in the 14th to 17 th centuries used Islam as a literary vehicle to expose abuses by the christian church, so Jews used Islam as a vehicle to expose and comment on antisemitism in Europe over much the same time. Both invented an Islam tolerant to their religion, and more tolerant than christian Europe.
Both were inventions, as can be shown by their almost complete lack of knowledge about Islam in the very pieces they wrote.
These impressions of a tolerant Islam have, although, been much more persistent than the actual articles, books and pamphlets have proved to be. But they are inventions - a writer's device used to throw light onto an otherwise featurless outlook.
Some Muslim rulers have at times been tolerant of, and even interested in, other religions, but this has been the exception, not the rule. The Muslim mobs have generally been worse, and have frequently forced rulers to be more intolerant then they might otherwise have liked.
Most Muslims are better than their religion would have them be, on most issues most of the time. This is just as well, as Islam as it is found in the Koran and the Hadith is a chaotic, puritanical fascism. The question remains: by what means do those Muslims who do not want anyone's particular view of Sharia forced upon them resist that force?

Camo,

You continue to claim, for example, that Islam had a 'murderous intolerance for much of the last 1400 years' against Jewish people. This is demonstrably untrue. I can only suggest that you start with The Jews of Islam (1984) by Middle-East historian Bernard Lewis. For a more specific context you could look at María Rosa Menocal's The Ornament of the World (2003) which explores "the golden age of Judiasm" under the Andulsian Caliphate, a period which saw the Islamic polymath Ibn-Rushd, also called "the father of secularism" and the Jewish polymath Moses Maimonides.

This is not to suggest that dhimmitude was a walk in the park. It does not suggest that Muslim pograms against Jews did not occur; 1066 in Granada stands out, as does 1465 in Fez. But even the most basic comparison with Christianity at the time (consider England 1189-90, west, central Europe 1348 and the tens of thousands massacred by Christian mobs in Spain in 1391) clearly indicates that the rule under the cross was often, indeed usually, worse than rule under the crescent.

You ask "by what means do those Muslims who do not want anyone's particular view of Sharia forced upon them resist that force?" There are many methods. The obvious one which is always applicable is through violent conflict. But more subtle means include interpretation of law; Islamic jurisprudence (fiqh) can be quite subtle, inclusive and diverse - after it it was the Muslims of the Ottoman Empire who gave the Jews of Spain a haven after the persecution under the fundamentalist Muslims and their expulsion by the fundamentalist Christians.

Again, all of this history is quite moot, indeed quite useless for the discussion. The topic is not what happened in 1066 in Grenada or 1189 in York and London. The topic is whether all people are deserving of universal human rights regardless of nationality or religion. To the extent that any government does not is the extent that it should be opposed.

Lev - I notice you haven't returned to your wikipedia link article, yet it does talk about what is happening today, in Muslim-controlled Bethlehem, and which is indicative of Muslim relations with both christians and jews. Dhimmitude not a cake-walk? Dhimmitude is institutional inferiority, frequently abrogated by those who imposed it, condoning theft, assault and death.
And how effective have those Palestinians in Bethlehem, who do not want the christians to be forced to live under a religious ergime they have chosen to avoid, been in helping their christian neighbours in living the way they choose?
And the historical record is not moot - if Muslims have one thing, it is long memories. Events 1400 years ago are frequently referred to, both by populace and rulers alike, to justify or condemn present acts and attitudes. And this attitude is projected into the future - I'm told that the moderates in Hammas think it will take 500 years to overcome Israel, and be done mostly by immigration and demographics (now there's something we've heard before). That's why the right of return is so important, as both Israelis and Palestinians know what the result would be.
In a pefect world there would be no discrimination - a banal saying, but something that appears necessary to say. Because it was the far-from-perfect situation in which the Jews found themselves which drove them to found for themselves a homeland, which meant creating a state in which they dominated. Once Muslims accept that they do not have a right to dominate Palestine and those who live there, there won't be a need for a state dominated by Jews. But until that time, there is a need.
But in a perfect world the successors of the prophet may not have chosen to interpret a saying of muhammad as referring to Jerusalem, when it was far from clear what Muhammad was referring to.