For the record, Christiane Amanpour has done a fantastic job with God’s Warriors, a three-part CNN series about the rise of fundamentalism in three religions: Judaism, Islam, and Christianity. All parts are very intertwined and deal with liberals, moderates, and radicals of each religion and their interaction with the government. I was most surprised by the first program, “Jewish Warriors,” because I started to understand a bit more about Zionism (the post-WWII movement that supported the creation of a Jewish state (Zion) in Palestine — now Israel) and didn’t quite agree with every piece of the puzzle.

Zionism, in its most modern form, came about as a result of many events: the Diaspora (a mass movement of Jewish inhabitants of Israel after the territory, Judea, was captured and pillaged by Titus’ armies in 70 A.D.), medieval persecution (triggered by nothing less than religious “concerns” of then-Christian Europe,) and the Holocaust.

My problem with Zionism is not the actual idea of the creation of a Jewish state, but rather the concept of constant Jewish ownership of the land (view these maps of land-ownership in the region). Zionists feel that they have a claim to the territory of their ancestors, which obviously didn’t sit well with Arab residents of the area. I have found, on several occasions that perpetual ownership simply doesn’t work. Land shifts hands practically every generation. Imagine: if that one facet of the pro-Zionism movement applied to all other cultural lands, Italians might as well make a bid for control of Europe, North Africa, and parts of the Middle East because, well, their ancestors — the Romans — had carried out their lives on that land previously. Oh, and we’ll throw Celts the United Kingdom and Ireland. It doesn’t make sense, does it? The only other occasion I have seen of this sort of absolute grip on land is China’s complicated relationship with Taiwan and Tibet. It’s not a pretty comparison. This mentality has made peace between Palestinians and Israelis very complicated indeed.

Also, why is there no widespread movement for the partition of Israel to create a Palestinian state? Palestinians had been living in Israel at least a thousand years before Zionism and now, increasing Israeli settlement as well as violence perpetrated by both sides has caused a deep rift between the two. Wouldn’t a Palestinian homeland at least alleviate some of the problems of the region?

In the long run, I think assimilation is a necessity. It doesn’t do to encourage this “apartheid,” as some have called it, and yet, there are still those who feel that only one group of people should have a say. I’m not sure why, but it seems that large populations of very similar people just can’t seem to get along. Look at the Middle East; look at Kosovo (or Albania/Bosnia/Serbia/Yugoslavia) — why the meaningless strife? Why the constant warfare, brother against brother, countryman against countryman? Is there even a point?

At any rate, Part III of God’s Warriors, “Christian Warriors,” comes on CNN at 9 ET / 8 CT. I’ve been told that the previous two episodes are available on YouTube as well.