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I never stated that religion wasn't an actor in the relations in the middle east, but that wars are not driven by religious institutions rather by states. Have you noticed that all wars against Israel have halted what? 40 years 50 years ago?
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I think you're forgetting an Intifada or two...you don't think those are important?
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Islam is a religion, politically speaking it has virtually no institution in control of the state.
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To the extent this is true, it's only because most of the states in question are not democratic. Actually, though I'm not an expert in Islam, I know some quite moderate brands of Islam do consider the state to be in integral organ of their religion. If you have the attention span (a comment on the article, not you) check this out
http://anonymouse.org/cgi-bin/anon-w...4/Haneef34.htm - through the excessively technical language you can find some out some interesting things about what the author claims is an Islamic worldview (I wouldn't be able to verify it, but it seems credible.)
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The very idea that religion can be a major influence in determining economic activities would be dismissed as incoherent, irrational and emotional by the majority of contemporary economists. This is primarily due to the historical experience of Western Europe with Christianity and the result of the secularization process that took place in Western Europe since the 17th century. However, as presented by some writers, this secularization process is very much a western European experience and may not be universally applicable6. In the religious perspective of Islam, human beings are asked to address secular pursuits i.e. to deal with the here and now. Hence ‘shunning this world’ was never a religious teaching for Muslims as it may have been to Christian Europe in the Middle ages.
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Not that I would necessarily agree with this argument - it seems fairly reasonable to consider Israel an essentially European state. But the author says that everything, including the state, is the dominion of religion. I think this author has basically spelled out an anti-establishment economic ideology, probably the way this (pretty alternative) journal would have carried a defense of Communism a generation ago. It's true that this author is most likely not involved in any terrorist activities, but this is an ideology that would merit opposition even if Bin Laden had never been born, for the same reasons we opposed Communism.