This is too much to bear anymore!!!
- Thread starter chuuush
- Start date
Joke? Hard to get a word in edgewise around here, about Hamas or Israel or anything else remotely connected to inconveniently violent Muslims , without having to wade through 500 posts about "hiding behind civilians" and "using human shields" and so forth.geoff said:
A long tradition, adopted by every single enemy of the good, true, and noble.
We must note it's a good thing they do. Otherwise the tactics employed by those who "inevitably" and without moral blame bomb schoolhouses and use WP munitions in crowded cities tehy themselves have walled and blockaded, would impugn their motives, and their overall goals.
And? Surely they can send supplies in, Sam. There are already tunnels and Iran for weapons, to be honest.
Well, ice, the principal argument - as it should be, frankly - is the civilian loss of life. I agree wholeheartedly with this perspective. But Hamas uses human shields. They admit to doing so. They're happy about it. It helps to condition the debate: should Israel fire back anyway? What if they don't? What if they do?
I'm sorry if this makes the expected argumentative walkover cumbersome. Facts are facts.
If you think so.
Again: is there a reason the rocket launching sites couldn't be at the Tesco's across the way? Why is it as it is? It's an honest question that deserves an honest answer, and the wherewithal of reflection.
In other news, Egypt is finally shipping humanitarian supplies to Gaza!
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1042587.html
But in the video above...what exactly is the "ship intifada"? Hmm? Couldn't be what I think it is. Or one hopes.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1042587.html
But in the video above...what exactly is the "ship intifada"? Hmm? Couldn't be what I think it is. Or one hopes.
Was the ambulance prevented from entering a hot zone for those 4 days? If so, it seems the lives of the red cross members were being protected.
OK
Although there is a grain of truth to this on, it needs to be contextually understood. it is grossly exploited by Western media as a weapon to justify atrocities against the Palestinian people.
Or, perhaps their land, human rights and dignity could be restored so that a climate of genuine negotiation can be entered into. Of course the Zionist are displaying a gross lack of respect for human life as we speak. 900 casualties and rising.
Like the Republicans, Hamas was democratically elected.
This is difficult to quantify as the exact definition of "civilian" is blurred.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7811386.stm
There is far more than a grain of truth to it: it is a tacit admission by Hamas, and there is ample evidence of other Palestinian organizations doing the same. The old chant: "you love life but we love death".
Now your second point - the justification of atrocities - rests on the first: that the Israelis are bombing because of this fact. But how is this proven? It sounds more like an unsupported assertion, and a bit of a heinous one. Conversely, the conclusion that Hamas/IJ/Hezbollah/Brotherhood want civilian casualties follows directly - not necessarily because they want civilians to die (well...not some civilians, anyway, if you follow me) but because they want the deaths to make the press. They're likely not overly concerned about it: "you love life but we love death" and so on. So they fire from behind schools and playgrounds and all of that; and, amazingly, the kids stay put. And why do they stay put? Who tells them to? Isn't it a more natural impulse to leave? Yet, they don't. The conclusion is obvious: they're made to stay. Otherwise, why not clear out when the ubiquitous 4x4s pull up?
Certainly - but how much land? The Golan? West Bank? I think the Israelis would gladly part with them...if the rockets stop. So let's consult our imaginary scenario again: Israel hands them back, tears down the fence. What happens next? I can hazard a guess, as you can. Or are you thinking of still more broad concessions of land? I warn you: they haven't worked before.
Like the Republicans, Hamas may well not be very popular in Gaza right now. If sufficiently unpopular, don't the people deserve some kind of say as the democratically-minded will - and have - argued?
Best,
Geoff
Yes, I've seen that. Utterly regrettable and reprehensible that it's gotten to this point, frankly. (Of course...where else was it going to go?) I'm not sure where to draw the line, when civilians look like fighters and vice-versa.
Not that it can be condoned or categorically established as fact. Desperate measures for desperate people.
These are assumptions that smack of Western media spin.
The original lines of demarcation (British Mandate) that have been gradually eroded by the Zionists would have to be seen as a starting point. (hypothetically) If the Zionist would gladly part with them, why the imprisonment and conflict?
Unfortunately, due to this bloodthirsty conflict, Hamas has grown in popularity, and it seems the Zionist assault on the Palestinian people is going to have the exact reverse effect. If anything Israel is in a much worse position than before, and Gaza is strewn with corpses. For what? A couple of rockets?
(http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2009/01/2009110213118818.html)
Best,
Straw
Sorry to butt in here, does anyone have any idea of what could or would be an accepitble solution to both the Israelis AND the Palestinians?
I was thinking this. Palestinians SELL the Jews the Dome of the Rock to rebuild their temple (if anything the Jews can then realize building it didn't bring back YHWA or any other super being). In return the Palestinians are given the West Bank and Gaze strip which become Syria and Egypt respectively.
The money made off the sale of the Dome is given to each Palestinian to start their new life.
How's that sound?
I was thinking this. Palestinians SELL the Jews the Dome of the Rock to rebuild their temple (if anything the Jews can then realize building it didn't bring back YHWA or any other super being). In return the Palestinians are given the West Bank and Gaze strip which become Syria and Egypt respectively.
The money made off the sale of the Dome is given to each Palestinian to start their new life.
How's that sound?
A bit overdue, but still ....
I'm not sure I'm reading you correctly on this one, because my first reaction is, "Don't change the subject."
So let's see how far apart we are on this: Where, in the United States, would a white person have been treated the same? And, just to make sure, we can suppose this white person isn't visibly displaying any suggestion of being a Muslim.
However, I wouldn't simply brush that aside, either:
To start with the last part first, the problem is in one context doctrinal. One side—Muslims—are operating from a difficult position. It is not that they have no specific reason to fight with Jews and Christians in the West, but rather that they have a very specific doctrinal reason for actually getting along with their Abramic neighbors. And Karen Armstrong notes that some modern Islamic academics believe that, had Mohammed known of, say, Buddhists, he would have considered them as a People of the Book. So it's not that Muslims have no reason to not get along with their neighbors; still, what's the problem? And here we delve into a matter of definitions. If I may, we'll come back to that in a moment.
As to blaming Western civilization, there is at least the question of when we became capable of recognizing the problem, and what, if anything, we've done about it. Beyond that, though, like I said. The British and French and Germans can all get along. They have a common cultural bond that transcends national borders and languages. The Islamic world is not included in that because it does not have a predominantly Christian heritage. Doctrinally, the dehumanization of Muslims is inconsistent with the Sermon on the Mount, one of the basic landmarks of Christian faith°.
It would seem that the West is, at least, capable of recognizing the problem now. In this sense, the question of whether Song of Roland surprises anyone in and of itself only illustrates the point. It is hard to argue that the idea of a religiously-motivated political establishment expanding its territory and influence through various means, including military, was particularly unique during the period it describes or the period in which the story was formalized.
Why would Roland be surprising? It's not. That's not the point, as I see it.
Roland is just a periodic example of part of the underlying problem. From the West, we tend to view things according to a Straussian, or Christian, or even Zoroastrian mythology, in which there is necessarily good and evil, and something is judged to be one or the other.
Quite clearly, many Muslims regard Christianity and Judaism with disdain and even hatred. The doctrinal obligations of Christianity are fairly clear in the Gospel of Matthew, at least.
The culpability of Christian or Western culture comes in its betrayal of doctrine and its status and influence. Returning to your somewhat strange characterization of how Islamic culture regards you or your culture, even granting that outlook as true, we cannot pretend that such a condition has developed in isolation. Perhaps if we strike from consideration any notion of psychology, either individual or communal, we might look at the Taliban, or the Saud, and say, "What horrible people!" But as the Western world has transformed itself into a comparatively humanitarian phase, not only have we excluded the Islamic word from that, but we have achieved much of our progress through the exploitation of other cultures, many of them Islamic. Our necessity interrupts their progress; we cannot, the, pretend that they exist in a vacuum in order to condemn their savage backwardness or failure to move beyond public stonings and such.
There is no question that the Islamic world, and humanity in general, would profit greatly if these cultures were to join us in the hope and prosperity of the twenty-first century. Or the twentieth century, when we were in it. But our luxury depended in no small part on their deprivation. We cannot, in assessing the state of Islamic cultures, ignore the reasons explaining how they ended up where they are.
It is easier to blame "them" instead of "us", I admit. But I live in a nation in which no president has been anything but Christian. And Christian morality is frequently on state ballots, and frequently successful. Many would claim ours a Christian nation, and yet the strongest manifestation of that is opposition to abortion or homosexuality. Actually conducting ourselves according to Christian standards is either too expensive or too bothersome.
Generally speaking, the oppressed. For instance, in the modern day, why are there fuel shortages in Nigeria?
A fascinating notion, I confess. At least, the part I can make sense of.
I find it interesting that so many would let the apostates define the doctrine. Of course, it is common in American culture to do the same thing with Christianity, so it's hard to criticize.
This is where you've lost me, and thus where I keep dropping the response.
It is a question that has wracked Islamic communities for centuries, at least since the end of the Rashidun.
This is another of your mysterious statements of a context that escapes me. If, for instance, I simply focus on the final interrogative, I would snort and wonder if you're really saying what it looks like. And then I would propose that the American revolutionaries were so oppressive of the British Crown, or the Muslim world so oppressive of the West that they forced the United States, Britain, and Russia to divvy up the nations among themselves to exploit after World War II.
I take it you're familiar with the contents of the Bible? Indeed, I would purport that you're probably more familiar with the Bible than you are the Qur'an. You do realize, do you not, that what makes the Bible less deadly in the hands of modern Christians than its contents would otherwise suggest is the fact of massive and hemorrhaging apostasy?
What causes this apostasy? Indeed, why is it that so many Christians are willing to turn to the Pauline evangelism or Old Testament when the words of Christ are somehow inconvenient? And, yet, rhetoric of Amalek still persists in the West; that is, there are still those who would call for divinely-inspired (and -justified) genocide. What prevents us is not some pure cultural devotion to turn the other cheek. Indeed, it is a hopeful notion, but it's merely that: hope. Not even those who proclaim themselves Christian can follow this rule.
To quote Roger Waters:
But it still doesn't mean my daughter's maternal grandfather is going to get rid of his guns. It doesn't mean he'll turn the other cheek when challenged. It doesn't mean he will put his family in its rightful place according to Jesus. And it doesn't mean that American Christians will render unto Caesar. It does not mean that they will show compassion to the least of Christ's brethren. It does not mean they will turn the other cheek. Indeed, not only did we Americans fail to turn the other cheek when 15 Saudis, two Emiratis, a Yemeni, and a Lebanese attacked the United States at the orders of a Saudi exile in Afghanistan. In fact, we so failed to turn the other cheek that we eventually invaded Iraq, which was the wrong nation altogether. And among our Christians we have a movement known as premillennial dispensationalism, and it is in their quest for salvation and the Kingdom of God that so much of the American Christian voice has become devoted to funding, endorsing, and—as in our nation's diplomatic efforts—enforcing the Israeli right to indiscriminately kill Muslims.
What is hopeful is hopeful. What is real is real. History itself is already subject to political whim, but writing pure fiction in order to justify the reality of mass murder isn't going to bring the horrific situation in the Palestine to a decent and humane resolution. Peace with dignity, or peace through genocide? That the question should be remotely viable in the West suggests the failure of the hopeful Christian principle you've noted.
Extending that half-millennium by a couple centuries to reflect a more accurate generalization of the time-frame doesn't help much. Still, the next two sentences of your paragraph are interesting:
When the Islamic world enjoyed a greater position of power, it was competing with the Christian world according to the generally-accepted rules and customs of the era. We ought not do the same ourselves? I would hope so. We've spent the last few centuries sublimating and redefining those customs. It would be a shame to think what progress we've made should be for naught. To the other, though, neither should we forget that our progress has come over millions, perhaps billions, of bodies.
Our notions of wider domestic human rights, though, in addition to being barely enforced at best, are the logical result of what were originally selectively-assigned rights and virtues to which only certain people were entitled. And, in the end, it is our luxury, not any purity of conscience, that moves us to grant, extend, or recognize these rights and virtues. Now that we have reached a juncture in which we are willing to emphatically withdraw those rights and virtues in defense of our luxury, we might wonder just how much we can accomplish by organizing our society according to priorities defined by psychological conflict.
____________________
Notes:
° basic landmarks of Christian faith — In the United States, Christian churches routinely endorse what this famous episode of the Gospels defines as adultery. There are several parts of this episode that are regularly swept aside; sometimes, it seems as if they are completely forgotten. I mention this because, like the dehumanization of Muslims, these omissions are inconsistent with the faith. The thing is that nobody should pretend being a Christian is easy.
Works Cited:
Armstrong, Karen. Islam: A Short History. New York: Modern Library Chronicles, 2000.
Bible: Revised Standard Version. http://quod.lib.umich.edu/r/rsv/
Waters, Roger. "It's A Miracle". Amused to Death. 1992.
"[3F21] Homerpalooza". Springfield Nuclear Power Plant. Accessed January 3, 2008. http://www.snpp.com/episodes/3F21.html
GeoffP said:
I'm not sure I'm reading you correctly on this one, because my first reaction is, "Don't change the subject."
So let's see how far apart we are on this: Where, in the United States, would a white person have been treated the same? And, just to make sure, we can suppose this white person isn't visibly displaying any suggestion of being a Muslim.
However, I wouldn't simply brush that aside, either:
To start with the last part first, the problem is in one context doctrinal. One side—Muslims—are operating from a difficult position. It is not that they have no specific reason to fight with Jews and Christians in the West, but rather that they have a very specific doctrinal reason for actually getting along with their Abramic neighbors. And Karen Armstrong notes that some modern Islamic academics believe that, had Mohammed known of, say, Buddhists, he would have considered them as a People of the Book. So it's not that Muslims have no reason to not get along with their neighbors; still, what's the problem? And here we delve into a matter of definitions. If I may, we'll come back to that in a moment.
As to blaming Western civilization, there is at least the question of when we became capable of recognizing the problem, and what, if anything, we've done about it. Beyond that, though, like I said. The British and French and Germans can all get along. They have a common cultural bond that transcends national borders and languages. The Islamic world is not included in that because it does not have a predominantly Christian heritage. Doctrinally, the dehumanization of Muslims is inconsistent with the Sermon on the Mount, one of the basic landmarks of Christian faith°.
It would seem that the West is, at least, capable of recognizing the problem now. In this sense, the question of whether Song of Roland surprises anyone in and of itself only illustrates the point. It is hard to argue that the idea of a religiously-motivated political establishment expanding its territory and influence through various means, including military, was particularly unique during the period it describes or the period in which the story was formalized.
Why would Roland be surprising? It's not. That's not the point, as I see it.
Roland is just a periodic example of part of the underlying problem. From the West, we tend to view things according to a Straussian, or Christian, or even Zoroastrian mythology, in which there is necessarily good and evil, and something is judged to be one or the other.
Quite clearly, many Muslims regard Christianity and Judaism with disdain and even hatred. The doctrinal obligations of Christianity are fairly clear in the Gospel of Matthew, at least.
The culpability of Christian or Western culture comes in its betrayal of doctrine and its status and influence. Returning to your somewhat strange characterization of how Islamic culture regards you or your culture, even granting that outlook as true, we cannot pretend that such a condition has developed in isolation. Perhaps if we strike from consideration any notion of psychology, either individual or communal, we might look at the Taliban, or the Saud, and say, "What horrible people!" But as the Western world has transformed itself into a comparatively humanitarian phase, not only have we excluded the Islamic word from that, but we have achieved much of our progress through the exploitation of other cultures, many of them Islamic. Our necessity interrupts their progress; we cannot, the, pretend that they exist in a vacuum in order to condemn their savage backwardness or failure to move beyond public stonings and such.
There is no question that the Islamic world, and humanity in general, would profit greatly if these cultures were to join us in the hope and prosperity of the twenty-first century. Or the twentieth century, when we were in it. But our luxury depended in no small part on their deprivation. We cannot, in assessing the state of Islamic cultures, ignore the reasons explaining how they ended up where they are.
It is easier to blame "them" instead of "us", I admit. But I live in a nation in which no president has been anything but Christian. And Christian morality is frequently on state ballots, and frequently successful. Many would claim ours a Christian nation, and yet the strongest manifestation of that is opposition to abortion or homosexuality. Actually conducting ourselves according to Christian standards is either too expensive or too bothersome.
Generally speaking, the oppressed. For instance, in the modern day, why are there fuel shortages in Nigeria?
A fascinating notion, I confess. At least, the part I can make sense of.
I find it interesting that so many would let the apostates define the doctrine. Of course, it is common in American culture to do the same thing with Christianity, so it's hard to criticize.
This is where you've lost me, and thus where I keep dropping the response.
It is a question that has wracked Islamic communities for centuries, at least since the end of the Rashidun.
This is another of your mysterious statements of a context that escapes me. If, for instance, I simply focus on the final interrogative, I would snort and wonder if you're really saying what it looks like. And then I would propose that the American revolutionaries were so oppressive of the British Crown, or the Muslim world so oppressive of the West that they forced the United States, Britain, and Russia to divvy up the nations among themselves to exploit after World War II.
I take it you're familiar with the contents of the Bible? Indeed, I would purport that you're probably more familiar with the Bible than you are the Qur'an. You do realize, do you not, that what makes the Bible less deadly in the hands of modern Christians than its contents would otherwise suggest is the fact of massive and hemorrhaging apostasy?
What causes this apostasy? Indeed, why is it that so many Christians are willing to turn to the Pauline evangelism or Old Testament when the words of Christ are somehow inconvenient? And, yet, rhetoric of Amalek still persists in the West; that is, there are still those who would call for divinely-inspired (and -justified) genocide. What prevents us is not some pure cultural devotion to turn the other cheek. Indeed, it is a hopeful notion, but it's merely that: hope. Not even those who proclaim themselves Christian can follow this rule.
To quote Roger Waters:
By the grace of God Almighty, and the pressures of the marketplace, the human race has civilized itself.
("It's a Miracle")
("It's a Miracle")
But it still doesn't mean my daughter's maternal grandfather is going to get rid of his guns. It doesn't mean he'll turn the other cheek when challenged. It doesn't mean he will put his family in its rightful place according to Jesus. And it doesn't mean that American Christians will render unto Caesar. It does not mean that they will show compassion to the least of Christ's brethren. It does not mean they will turn the other cheek. Indeed, not only did we Americans fail to turn the other cheek when 15 Saudis, two Emiratis, a Yemeni, and a Lebanese attacked the United States at the orders of a Saudi exile in Afghanistan. In fact, we so failed to turn the other cheek that we eventually invaded Iraq, which was the wrong nation altogether. And among our Christians we have a movement known as premillennial dispensationalism, and it is in their quest for salvation and the Kingdom of God that so much of the American Christian voice has become devoted to funding, endorsing, and—as in our nation's diplomatic efforts—enforcing the Israeli right to indiscriminately kill Muslims.
What is hopeful is hopeful. What is real is real. History itself is already subject to political whim, but writing pure fiction in order to justify the reality of mass murder isn't going to bring the horrific situation in the Palestine to a decent and humane resolution. Peace with dignity, or peace through genocide? That the question should be remotely viable in the West suggests the failure of the hopeful Christian principle you've noted.
Extending that half-millennium by a couple centuries to reflect a more accurate generalization of the time-frame doesn't help much. Still, the next two sentences of your paragraph are interesting:
"When the islamic world enjoyed a greater position of power, it was used without hesitation. I'm not arguing that we ought to do so ourselves, but why should we beat ourselves up about it?"
When the Islamic world enjoyed a greater position of power, it was competing with the Christian world according to the generally-accepted rules and customs of the era. We ought not do the same ourselves? I would hope so. We've spent the last few centuries sublimating and redefining those customs. It would be a shame to think what progress we've made should be for naught. To the other, though, neither should we forget that our progress has come over millions, perhaps billions, of bodies.
Our notions of wider domestic human rights, though, in addition to being barely enforced at best, are the logical result of what were originally selectively-assigned rights and virtues to which only certain people were entitled. And, in the end, it is our luxury, not any purity of conscience, that moves us to grant, extend, or recognize these rights and virtues. Now that we have reached a juncture in which we are willing to emphatically withdraw those rights and virtues in defense of our luxury, we might wonder just how much we can accomplish by organizing our society according to priorities defined by psychological conflict.
____________________
Notes:
° basic landmarks of Christian faith — In the United States, Christian churches routinely endorse what this famous episode of the Gospels defines as adultery. There are several parts of this episode that are regularly swept aside; sometimes, it seems as if they are completely forgotten. I mention this because, like the dehumanization of Muslims, these omissions are inconsistent with the faith. The thing is that nobody should pretend being a Christian is easy.
Bart: Do you wear boxers or briefs?
Homer: [checking] Nope.
Bart: What religion are you?
Homer: You know, the one with all the well-meaning rules that don't work out in real life. Uh ... Christianity.
Homer: [checking] Nope.
Bart: What religion are you?
Homer: You know, the one with all the well-meaning rules that don't work out in real life. Uh ... Christianity.
—The Simpsons, #3F22
Works Cited:
Armstrong, Karen. Islam: A Short History. New York: Modern Library Chronicles, 2000.
Bible: Revised Standard Version. http://quod.lib.umich.edu/r/rsv/
Waters, Roger. "It's A Miracle". Amused to Death. 1992.
"[3F21] Homerpalooza". Springfield Nuclear Power Plant. Accessed January 3, 2008. http://www.snpp.com/episodes/3F21.html
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Yeah, I don't expect any positive outcomes any time soon. But, in time, maybe.
There we are. A camel could not pass through the hair of different between your opinion and Hamas'.
It cannot be condoned, yes, but it is a categorical fact. Hamas has admitted to it; a few months back as I recall. Not in the slightest. These are the very kind of slogans one encounters in an examination of islamist terror. As for the deaths: what else would you imagine? If terrorists fire from directly behind your school - and I can tell you from experience that it is fundamentally impossible to miss the sound of a mortar from almost a mile away, let alone from directly behind a building; a distance of at most 100 meters - what then? Is it not considerably more rational to, say, depart the building? But people don't. Why not? Photographs have also been taken of 'resistance' (since you may well object to 'terrorist') soldiers firing at Israelis with children packed in tightly around the shooter. I'm really not sure what your purpose in this speculation is. Whatever you think of the cause, there's little doubt that this is what is being done.Unfortunately, this was followed by the 1968 and 1971 wars, which were not provoked by the Israelis.
(hypothetically) If the Zionist would gladly part with them, why the imprisonment and conflict?[/QUOTE]
I don't say that all Israelis would gladly part with them. Yet, there was the Oslo Accord which failed at the behest of Arafat. Some such accords have failed on the Israeli side and some on the Palestinian side. You seem to take the opinion that all such failures have been the fault of the Israelis. Why do you believe that this is so?
It really matters little. The rockets and the terrorism were never going to stop anyway.
BTW: could you occasionally use the word "Israeli" instead of "Zionist"? I've already made concessions to the alternative perspective in my terminology, as you've seen above. Also, longer answers - see Tiassa below for an example - might be more effective. Without communication, how can we find common ground?
Best,
Geoff