Reply #74: I think they were.

[ozone_man]

During the Inquisition, 200,000 Jews were expelled from Spain to North Africa and Turkey and other parts. When conversion to Christianity by some of the wealthier Jews angered the aristocracy, a law was passed denying them certain forms of property ownership, the beginnings of racial antisemitism. That essentially was the end of their Jewish "problem". It was much later in Germany, though as early as the First Crusade in 1096 (the First Holocaust) there were Pogroms against the Jews there (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Crusade). But throughout this period, there was persecution stemming from religious antisemitism which changed into modern antisemitism after the Enlightenment.

So, recognition of the state of Israel is really part of a story that goes back a long way. Relocation, sometimes forced, sometimes not, is a big part of that story. Christianity already took care of it's Jewish "problem", while Islam is still an intolerant medieval religion. It is still mired in the religious antisemitism that Christianity dealt with 500 years ago. I think there is more to the story than religion though, due to the oil in the ME. Is it really Democracy that we want in the ME or constant turmoil, so that we can control the oil wealth? Looking at the past overthrow of a Democratically elected president in Iran (1953), and installation of the Shah, it would seem that Democracy is not the goal.