Ritual terrorism: Hating Obama as a new form of religion

By Bradley Burston-Haaretz
When I was young, I was taught that the purpose of religion was to foster compassion through lovingkindness, to seek peace by example, to perform with human hands the work of angels.

Then I moved to the Holy Land.

If ever the history of religion were written in blood, it was here. If ever religion has drowned history in blood, this is the venue. If ever the sword has beaten the plowshare, whether brandished along with the Old Testament, the New, or the Koran - we can show you the spot. And, more recently, if ever religion has succeeded in keeping peace, reconciliation, even the United Nations and the United States, at bay, ours is the place and time.
So it should have come as no surprise, I suppose, that a cluster of people here, people who cloak themselves in the garb of the pious, have decided to marry their furious loathing of Barack Obama to the custom of their faith, and to do what some in America have been doing for more than a year now: Hating Barack Obama as a new form of religious observance.