Hamas Wins and They're blaming me

Seriously, people are being militant. My relatives are all blaming America and the democrat-liberals whom it is harboring. Today I sat at dinner with my mom's cousin, Faya, and her husband and I was angrily talked at by the quite militant husband for about 30 minutes before I finally had enough of it and said something. For some reason all of the Russians in Israel think the country is too "democratic," influenced by America, where people are way too free to blow themselves up and others. I was told today that not all people can be trusted with democracy - not everyone is smart enough or advanced enough to handle the responsibility. Upon my suggestion that maybe we should be asking why the Palestinians feel that blowing themselves up is a viable option, I was barked at by the militant husband who insisted I was being fed lies by the American media. Ironic isn't it that we both agree on that point. He also told me that American intellectuals from prestigious universities were denying the Holocaust. Would someone please let me in on this, damn it!?

Later, I pointed out to Faya that I didn't feel Israel was a democracy either, but a religious state, and that the two are mutually exclusive. (This, my Israeli cousin Michal agreed with last night, saying that Israel is doomed from that start in its mission for a Jewish democracy.) I told Faya (in the absence of her less calm husband) that I'd never live in a country that allowed only religious marriages (no such thing as civil marriages here) between men and women of the same religion. She told me that the Russian immigrants have been pushing for less religion, more liberal social reform, and that she agreed with me that it was unfair for the government to meddle in one's private life in that way. So, too democratic or not democratic enough? I really think they have no idea what democracy is all about.