An Iowa State University religious studies professor says religion has to be more of a consideration if there’s ever to be an end to the violence in the Middle East between Israel and the Lebanon-based Hezbollah terrorist organization.
Hector Avalos has written a book no religious violence. Avalos says most conflicts and violence can be traced to a scarce resource, from love in a family to oil, and is the case of the Middle East, he says it’s “Sacred Space.”
Avalos says this idea has to be considered. He says as long as foreign policy doesn’t address the sacred space issue, “Anything else is just not going to work.” Avalos says you could kill off Hezbollah and the issue will still not go away. Avalos says choosing religious sides doesn’t work to solve religious arguments.
Avalos says the idea for example that Osama Bin Laden has hijacked Islam brands one side as a heretic and gets you into a religious argument. Avalos has this solution for settling the trouble in the Middle East. He says the global community needs to be aware of how religious belief can create scarcity and why space becomes sacred. Avalos says all other things that have been tried have not worked. Avalos wrote the book “Fighting Words: The Origins of Religious Violence.”