Theocracy and Violence

Nothing like traveling to give yourself time to think.  So, what did I spend my time thinking about for eight hours today?  Of course, political motivated violence was on my mind.  Specifically I wound up thinking about statements made last week by President Obama about violence by Daesh (If the Arabic population can call it Daesh, so can I, but for the rest of you IS(IS)) and the off-hand comparative statement about Christian violence in the Crusades.

From 1096 to 1456 sixteen "Crusades" were organized by the rulers of Western principalities.  The first thing to note is we are talking about politically sponsored calls to battle in a time of feudalism. We should also note that Papal authority was held to be authority over religious and civil matters, making government somewhat theocratic.  So a collection of theocratically controlled leaders led campaigns to take control of territory considered sacred to the faith against another collection of theocratically controlled leaders who controlled the territory sacred to the Christian faith, but also sacred to their own Islamic faith.  Therein ends the comparative value of the crusades to understanding Daesh.  Why?  Because we do not live in a feudally organized global society as of 1648, the culmination of negotiations between 1618 to 1648 was the Peace of Westphalia (please do not call it the Treaty of Westphalia as the "Peace" was a compilation of two complimentary treaties signed between May and October 1648 after 30 years of negotiation---30 YEARS of negotiation).

So, my two cents worth on the subject matter at hand is simple.  The only comparable theocracy that could be looked at potentially is Israel, but does Israel sponsor violence on the ground that the opponents are simply not Jewish?  If you believe that Israel sponsors violence against other populations simply because they are not Jewish, please let me know I have beach front property for sale.  With the exception of transnational terrorist organizations based on radical theocratic ideologies, religion does not serve as the basis for organized political violence in contemporary society.  Nazi Germany's issue with Jews was not absolutely that they were not Christian, but that racially they were different from Aryan Germans.  While religion is an identity feature in ethnic identity it has rarely been the primary identifier of groups engaged in violent ethnic conflict.  So, Daesh is an anomaly as a theocratic state in the contemporary world, except, possibly from past leaders of states with majority Muslim populations trying to keep a Jewish state from existing.  Oops, we are supposed to avoid calling Islam violent, right--at least I think that was the point desired by Obama when he made the intellectually irresponsible comparison of the Crusades with the current. behavior of Daesh.