Hello,
@ Neal: "Bush and Obama"
(Well it was't so hard indeed
)
We had that discussion before, if in another forum worlds apart. The jewish approach was that jewish religion, just like christianity, has sooner or later drawn a line on how to interprete their holy scripts, and have then had some kind of reformation - something Islam does not seem to have done yet (?) - i may be wrong though.
Even then jewish extremists may well live under their explanation of the Thora, rejecting any progress that has been made by the official Rabbis, just like some christians ..
Anyway, the separation between religion and state is the only way to go. You need religion-independent law, otherwise the religious sub-groups in a state will never stop to harass each other. Even in India with its larger groups of muslims and Hindi, there are clashes all the time, also against christian minorities.
WHat i consider to be starnge is that jews and christians did live well under the reign of some Saladin long ago, even if the foregone fights for Jerusalem were hard to say at least.