I’m all in favor of an adult conversation about Israel. Indeed, one need look no further than the Levantine region to realize that culture wars are very old — biblical, even:
Let’s reverse the nouns: Replace “Muhammad” with “Moses”, “Arabs” with “Jews,” and “leftists” with “rightists” (“may your village burn” can stay the same).
Would the Israeli police provide protection for tens of thousands of Palestinians as they marched through Jewish West Jerusalem and chanted (while outside a synagogue) “Moses is dead!” and (while entering the Old City’s Jewish Quarter ) “slaughter the Jews”?
“May your village burn” is more than a curse, it is an imprecatory war-prayer. It is the white-sheet-and-American-flag KKK. It is the patriot “movement.” It is the kulturkampf, a cultural response to social stress. Occasionally, tremors produce actual kulturkrieg — culture killing.
