If that's a quote, I can't find its source.
If it isn't a quote, I don't know what your point is.
Conflict between Palestine and Israel escalates
- Thread starter dreng3
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If it isn't a quote, I don't know what your point is.
That’s not really the problem with Sam ‘If you mediate like me, you would agree that I’m right’ Harris. Well, it is a problem but ...
So.. He’s declared that Islam is a religion of violence based on the Quaran. That means that Muslims are inherently violent so we need to be violent first.
Which flies in the face of the fact that most Muslims aren’t remotely violent. It doesn’t really matter if their religious text are violent or not. It’s what the population does that matters. Eg. Christian can pretend they are peaceful but a lot of invasions are done by religious countries. ‘Having a peaceful bible’ doesn’t mean that Christian are peaceful. I’d also like to point out the Buddhist (generally seen as very peaceful) in Myanmar (not peaceful at all.)
No amount of saying ‘most Muslims aren’t violent’ has dissuaded him from his rhetoric... because Sam Harris thinks he’s always right and likes to stereotype people. Like, I’m not going to blame all Christians because Trump or Biden are trying to invade a country.
How many Muslims states are air striking apartment complexes?
Palestine is not a Quagmire - Steve Salaita
The metaphors that attempt to render Palestine complicated obscure the simple brutality of Zionist colonization.
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Air-striking? None as far as I know, mostly because they don't have the capability. There's definitely been Islamic terrorist attacks that targeted apartment buildings using explosives. Whether the explosives were delivered by air seems irrelevant.
Israel would not be acceptable if it managed to stop itself from blowing up apartment buildings, or if it let Gaza build an air or seaport, or control its own access to electricity, or allowed Gaza's water not to be poisoned, or allowed its residents to leave, or if it managed to only kill "militants" and no one else. It would not be acceptable if it lifted the siege of Gaza and stopped the lynch mobs and froze the settlement process (ethnic cleansing) where it stands. The brutality and sadism of Israel's treatment of Palestinians is outrageous, but that brutality exists to preserve and perpetuate an original violent crime, which is the theft of Palestinian land. A colonizer's "right to self-defense" is a right to preserve its previous and ongoing violent aggression by force. There is no such right!
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Harris has explicitly distinguished between Islam and its followers. Most people, including the "New Atheists," have done so.
Depends what you mean by "matter."
"Islam isn't a religion of peace."
"Most Muslims aren't violent."
These aren't contradictory statements. Most Muslims, hell, most people, are capable of compartmentalizing elements of their faith. If you want a Christian example, many Christians accept evolution, despite the fact that the Bible states that the Earth was created in six days. Personally, I'd call that dead on arrival, if your religious text has been proven wrong from the outset, but somehow, people manage it.
As for Buddhists, yes, Buddhists can be violent. However, Buddhism differs from the Abrahamic faiths in that it's pretty agnostic on the existence of other gods/other faiths, whereas Christianity and Islam are explicit on the idea of there being only one God, and have the whole prosthelatyzing thing going on. So while Judaism is montheisitic, its followers tend to be unconcerned with what other people do or don't believe. So from the fundamentals of these texts, Christianity and Islam are more predisposed to violence. Only while Christianity has generally mellowed out over the last few centuries, Islam generally hasn't. It also doesn't help that Islam's founder was a warlord, slave owner, and, well, phedophile, while Jesus was more pacifistic, not to mention that Islam runs with the idea that its the final word of God, which makes reform difficult.
Not sure what countries Biden or Trump are invading, but evangelicals got Trump into power, and I'm happy to blame them for it.
I don't know why you're focusing on apartment complexes, as if that's the be all and end all of morality in war, but for shits and giggles, I actually looked up air strikes by Islamic states. Civilian casualties have been inflicted by Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Jordan, Syria, Egypt, Lebanon, Libya, and Turkey. If we're limiting this to appartment complexes specifically, then we can hone in on Syria (its civil war) and Saudi Arabia (Yemen).
Again though, this is a non sequitur. It's like saying "which states have used chemical weapons?" (Iraq, Syria), and using that as the guideline* Hamas, like ISIS (which is where a lot of airstrike casualties have resulted) uses human shields, suicide bombers, and sets up its weapons in densely populated areas.
*In case you're wondering about the 'measure of morality,' it's stuff like the Human Rights Index and other similar data.
I've noticed a narrative being pushed here that Isreal is the "Bigger Bad Guy" here and I kinda find it problematic.
Because that's gonna be taken advantage of folks like Hamas to play the victim when they are doing just as morally questionable things as the IDF.
Because that's gonna be taken advantage of folks like Hamas to play the victim when they are doing just as morally questionable things as the IDF.
My apologies for the late reply.
Well, I am not that well versed in Native American history so correct me if I am wrong. Based on what I have read it does indeed appear very genocidal due to the fact the displacement was forced towards an absurdly remote area and involved a deadly journey which showed an absolute disregard for human lives (what happens in Gaza now is peanuts compare to that). However if this event was the only disgusting measure ever taken against Native Americans I would argue it may have not been genocidal. It's the context which makes it rather conclusive. Native Americans have been persecuted pretty much all over North America with attempts at cultural genocide (eg.: kidnapping children to put them in Christian boarding schools where they were forced to reject their cultural heritage and native language) and faced a lot of massacres and percecutions. In that context this atrocious event is one of the many elements/events which together paint a rather clear genocidal picture.
In contrast the Arab/Muslim community in Israel is not facing cultural genocide, they are still allowed to speak Arab, to be practicing muslims, etc. Their population has actually continuously increased as well, even their share of the total Israeli population has increased (although that may be due to the land annexations). So despite a lot of Israel's policies towards Gaza and Occupied Palestine being despicable, if they had a genocidal intent they seem to be truly ineffective.
And one is a terrorist organization, the other is a military, calling themselves the most moral military, under the auspices of a state that is largely recognized internationally, and calling itself the only democracy in the middle east.
Once the international community declares the IDF or the Israeli government terrorists organizations I'll hold them to the same standards as Hamas.
Palestinians are the victims. Israel/Palestine is not a conflict but a massacre. Hamas is exercising its right to resist oppression; to defend themselves and their people. The IDF is securing stolen land. There is no "just as morally questionable" there. One side is the colonizer and the other the colonized.
And that justifies using underhanded tactics like Human Shields and firing missiles into Civilian Populations (Oh but the IDF does it there for it doesn't matter)
peaceful protest has plainly made no progress; indeed, Israel treats things like the Great March of Return as marksmanship practice. Passivity simply results in Israel taking more and more and starving, poisoning, and so on the people of Gaza while the world ignores them. Rocket attacks are the only thing that seems to generate any attention. Does Hamas have any other option that will work? Israel has done its damnedest to make sure that a boycott, divestment, and sanctions movement of the sort that brought down apartheid South Africa won't happen, trying to make BDS illegal of all things in the United States and other places. If you want Hamas to target the IDF directly, give them the means to do so in a way that will allow them to win the resulting fight. Otherwise your opinion about how they should go about things is just so much noise. It is patently unreasonable to expect people to just lie down and die in obscurity.
Surprise, surprise, when you put people in desperate situations they end up doing desperate things.
Children dying in their homes from missiles is certainly a way to get attention.
I mean people gave shit to the British for their bombing campaigns against Nazi Germany where Civilians were caught in the crossfire. And that's with the justification that the Nazis bombed them first.
I don't think you're resisting oppression by firing random rockets in the general vicinity of Israel. It's an idiotic tactic. They would do better to just give up all their land and then go join Isis and perform terrorism that way cause that might actually work. Rockets get shot down by the iron dome in most instances and they hardly hit any strategic targets even when they do land.
So, we either have to believe that they are mentally handicapped and just going apeshit cause they're mad, or they're not really into resisting in the way we understand it, but rather are motivated by religious fervor and are playing the parts they believe they have to play in putting up tacit resistance, knowing they are doomed to dying in the process. It's basically death cult behavior that puts honor and religiosity above life.
I don't think Israel is obligated to care more about Hamas lives than they care about their own lives, and the normal Palestinian people who live in Israel's gaza area and are trapped by their leaders into being sacrifices for the media and their god need to have a revolution and overthrow their cultist leadership.
So, we either have to believe that they are mentally handicapped and just going apeshit cause they're mad, or they're not really into resisting in the way we understand it, but rather are motivated by religious fervor and are playing the parts they believe they have to play in putting up tacit resistance, knowing they are doomed to dying in the process. It's basically death cult behavior that puts honor and religiosity above life.
I don't think Israel is obligated to care more about Hamas lives than they care about their own lives, and the normal Palestinian people who live in Israel's gaza area and are trapped by their leaders into being sacrifices for the media and their god need to have a revolution and overthrow their cultist leadership.
Hamas does not have access to kind of munitions that Israel gets from the US. This really is the best they can do for retaliation.
Right, because all Muslims think the exact same things.
No we don't. Because there's also the possibility that they're being colonized by a government that has more resources at their disposal. Your understanding of geo-politics and Islam in general can charitably be described as "shallow."
