DC:
As you certainly know, the verdict is out as to whether local democracies in the ME will solve the ferocious problems at the center of the Islamic world.
I don't know if the world at large has encountered a problem this complex. A clash of civilizations is one thing, a Clash of Epochs is another. That is, while the world, or The West has raced past and above the Islamic World, it has scattered the elements of modernity everywhere, and some Islamic forms have adapted and others haven't. Those that haven't not only want to rid themselves of the scattered elements, but also of the source.
Even among those which have made their peace with The West there are retrograde pressures, with radicals pressuring otherwise passive populations toward more primitive and even suicidal versions of the faith.
The Palestinians are a special case, because they are what they are because of the UN and fully sixty years of reverse refinement toward the dull and exploited group they are today. The ambitious, the educated, the progressive and free thinking are all gone. We can see what's left.
Right now it seems like the problem can only be framed as a matter of Humankind moving up the slopes of the future, or being dragged back into another Dark Age by primitivism and theological barbarism. The outcome will be more gruesome than WWII, but I think the battle around the corner is an evolutionary one, and nothing less.
Well, we'll see, Rhod. These are uncertain times, but they are exciting times to be alive.
Short-term I am pessimistic, but long-term I remain optimistic.
For one thing, guys like you are on my side.
Oh my gosh... I agree with Rhod... Where's the Scotch, I need a drink.
Julie.
Inside every true liberal is a conservative struggling to get out. Scotch even used to be my drink.
I'd like to hear what you agree with, in your words.
Yeah, what Rhod said.
Four down and one to go !
Sorry... I've been working late and not reading blogs.
In my own words? I agree with the first paragraph that democracies will not solve the problems of the Middle East, note Syria and Hezbollah.
You're right in that it is a clash of epochs - while Judaism and Christianity have had periods of enlightenment, Islam has not. (I could write a several page essay on that, but not here.) Consequently Islam holds its people in an iron fist of fundamentalism framed in the world of 600 c.e. Philosophically we've moved on, they are frozen in the struggle of Islam needing to overcome Judaism and Christianity.
The Palestinians - you're right, those who are still there, have just hung on. Now they have a chunk of ground with Hamas in control? Time will tell. How can anyone take seriously a political group whose stated cause is to see the annihilation of another country?
As far as what will happen with radical Islam - I don't know. It's going to get uglier.
Julie:
Well put. At the top is your point that Judaism and Christianity have adjusted to modernity in the important ways...with some moral conflicts remaining to be resolved, especially questions about public morality and the power of The State.
Maybe that's the point of abrasion. Islam, radical or not, conceives of itself as the potential State. I couldn't care less how they choose to live, even where their behavior conflicts with my relatively liberal Western ideas (yes, women's rights, etc.), as long as they freely enter into arrangements.
At the heart of this for me is that The West has absorbed a conception of religious and political apostasy without condemning the believer to death or total exclusion. This is where Islam fails. The idea of "the Infidel" is the first cause of all their problems. It will also be the end for them unless they can change.
Rhod and Julie ... coming together.
Cumbayah, my Lord ... Cumbayah ...
Oh, Lord ... Cumbayah.
Go 'way, DC, we're having a conversation.... 
Rhod - Exclusion, exactly the problem. It may be the end for radical Islam, but of Islam in its entirety. However it will be a bloody struggle for all.
There is a historical perspective - the Ottoman Empire did not require religious conformity, honored Christianity, and was a haven for Jews in a time of Christian persecution. Can this kind of acceptance continue today? While Jews have continued to live in Turkey down thru the centuries, this may be ending since Al Queda bombed 2 synagogues (as well as other buildings) in Istanbul a few years back.
Oops, that should be: "but NOT of Islam in its entirety."
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