War in the Middle East, again

[Linguoboy]

Not in words, but you did immediately switched the topic to the safety of Palestinians. I’m certain you meant no harm from it — and of course it goes without saying that they deserve to feel 100% safe too, and any attacks on them are atrocious — but when everyone does this all the time, it does give me some idea about where people’s sympathies lie.

I'm always worried for the safety of my Jewish friends. They're never entirely safe even in the best of times and situations like these have a tendency of turning up the background anti-Semitism of society to the point that they become decidedly less so. I'm also used to worrying about the safety of my Muslim and Middle Eastern friends. What is disturbing and novel in this situation is seeing innocents targeted specifically on the basis of being Palestinian. I don't recall encountering that before in my lifetime, which probably means others haven't either, and I think that's worth drawing attention to, because--at least in this country--we're not attuned to it in the same way we are more generalised anti-Semitism or Islamophobia.

Does your average bigot make a difference between Palestinians and non-Palestinian Arabs or Muslims though? They seem perfectly willing to confuse Sikhs with them simply based on headgear and the typical color of their skin (re: the Oak Creek gurdwara massacre).

I don't really understand what point you're making here, Travis. Is this supposed to make me feel better in some way?

We literally have a neighbourhood here called "Little Palestine". It's in Bridgeview, about half an hour from where the attack that killed Wadea Al-Fayoume took place. If Chicago-area bigots want to carry out hate crimes specifically against Palestinians, they know exactly where to go. If they just want to attack any random "Arab", then not even my Latine friends are safe.

Yet it also feels like Islamic terrorism has contributed heavily to the background noise of politics for as long as I can remember. All the major examples of religious terrorism I recall over the past few decades have come from Islamic organizations.

Dude, maybe read up sometime on a place called "India"? Or maybe you're only counting attacks in the USA? In that case, there's an organisation you should know called "Army of God", not to mention several attacks on synagogues and mosques where the assailants cited Christian scripture to justify their actions.

Do the attacks in Japan by various small religions/cults count as religious terrorism or just terrorism? Ditto the various IRA & UVF groups.

I'm with Travis that calling Northern Irish violence "religious terrorism" is a stretch. There's a common misconception that the perpetrators were religiously motivated when, in actual fact, many IRA operatives were outspokenly atheist and Marxist and the worst of the "Protestant" violence was pure opportunistic thuggery. As he says, this was a "civil" conflict in that it was, at its core, a struggle between two major social groups over power and resources. It just so happened in this case that--due to mainly historical reasons--religious confession became the major identifying feature distinguishing the two groups. The IRA didn't blow up British barracks because the British were Protestant (Catholic recruits died too) but because the UK was effectively re-colonising Northern Ireland.

[malloc]

Dude, maybe read up sometime on a place called "India"? Or maybe you're only counting attacks in the USA? In that case, there's an organisation you should know called "Army of God", not to mention several attacks on synagogues and mosques where the assailants cited Christian scripture to justify their actions.

Not saying my impression is completely justified. I realize that propaganda against Muslims has been quite intense over the past few decades and that has undoubtedly shaped my perception even if I try to avoid it. Even so, there are some areas like continental Europe where almost all the terrorism I've heard about seems tied to Islam. At least, it's difficult for me to name any Christian terrorists in France and such. Is that simply media bias at play?

[Linguoboy]

Not saying my impression is completely justified. I realize that propaganda against Muslims has been quite intense over the past few decades and that has undoubtedly shaped my perception even if I try to avoid it. Even so, there are some areas like continental Europe where almost all the terrorism I've heard about seems tied to Islam. At least, it's difficult for me to name any Christian terrorists in France and such. Is that simply media bias at play?

I think it's less media bias than structural bias. Think for a moment about how "terrorism" is defined, who gets labeled "terrorists" in the media, and what sorts of people resort to "terrorism". To bring this back to the subject of the thread, the Hamas attacks on October 7th have been pretty much universally labeled "terrorism" for two main reasons: (a) they were directed primarily at non-military targets in order to spread terror among the general population and (b) they were perpetrated by non-state actors. The relentless Israeli bombing of Gaza, however, is much less likely to receive this label, since the targets are ostensibly military and the chief perpetrators are the IDF. However, the effects of the bombing are indisputably terrorising to the people of Gaza, who have no place to safety shelter from the constant rain of bombs.

Similarly, in the USA, many Muslims were living under a state of terror after 9/11 even though actual vigilante incidents were relatively few. The Reagan administration drew up a plan to intern Muslims in the way Eisenhower had the Japanese and then leaked it to the media, sending a message to millions of American citizens and foreign residents that they could be deprived of their liberty at any time. In the wake of 9/11, when Islamophobic rhetoric became rife among politicians aligned the administration, at lot of them were terrified that perhaps that moment had come. As you recall, a similar thing happened during the Trump administration in the form of the unconstitutional "Muslim ban". So Christians in the USA don't need to form violent underground groups to send a message to the Muslim population here that their safety is under threat; they just vote in politicians who will do it for them.

[malloc]

Good point. And another reminder as always that Reagan was terrible.

[Travis B.]

I don't really understand what point you're making here, Travis. Is this supposed to make me feel better in some way?

We literally have a neighbourhood here called "Little Palestine". It's in Bridgeview, about half an hour from where the attack that killed Wadea Al-Fayoume took place. If Chicago-area bigots want to carry out hate crimes specifically against Palestinians, they know exactly where to go. If they just want to attack any random "Arab", then not even my Latine friends are safe.

My point was that to expect terrorists to be sufficiently discriminating so as to make a clear distinction between Palestinians and other Arabs and Muslims is kind of expecting a little too much of them.

[Travis B.]

So Christians in the USA don't need to form violent underground groups to send a message to the Muslim population here that their safety is under threat; they just vote in politicians who will do it for them.

Even then there is plenty of far right-wing/white nationalist terrorism in the Western world, ranging from the El Paso Walmart mass shooting, the Christchurch mosque mass shootings, the Tree of Life mass shooting, the "Unite the Right" car attack, and so on and so forth. Take this for instance; according to this,

In the way of background, white supremacists and other far right extremists have killed more people since September 11, 2001, than any other category of domestic extremism. The Anti-Defamation League Center on Extremism has reported that 71% of the extremists-related fatalities in the U.S. between 2008 and 2017 were committed by members of a white supremacist or far-right group.

Note that it is speaking in the context of domestic terrorism in the US.

[rotting bones]

Now they're saying the "500 dead" was a mistranslation from "500 casualties (dead + wounded)".

Also, a flight from Tel Aviv landing in Dagestan was harassed by a jihadist crowd. Is this because it's Russia, or it it now dangerous for Jews to travel to Muslim countries like Drew Binsky used to?

I honestly can't think of a way to fix traditional ideological shortcomings without state-sponsored socialist education. Strictly speaking, this behavior is not even Islamic. It's just the ape brain's "other tribe" instinct.

[rotting bones]

Also, I don't feel like enough people are acknowledging that Hamas offered to release all their hostages if Israel will stop their bombing campaign, then they offered prisoner swaps, and so on. There were protests in Israel urging the government to accept. Instead, Israel cut off internet access to Gaza, stopped Elon Musk from providing Starlink to Gaza, and are now preparing to paint its streets red.

My only hope is that if the bigger Hitler slaughters its pet Hitlerling, they will run out of excuses to torment the Palestinians. Who knows if that will even make a difference?

PS. There was one instance where Hamas offered to release some hostages, and Israel refused to take them back.

[keenir]

I honestly can't think of a way to fix traditional ideological shortcomings without state-sponsored socialist education.

I don't think that would fix anything. (and not just because it didn't fix anything that last time there was socialist education)

It's just the ape brain's "other tribe" instinct.

That reinforces my hunch that not even socialism/socialist would fix anything.

[Travis B.]

I honestly can't think of a way to fix traditional ideological shortcomings without state-sponsored socialist education.

I don't think that would fix anything. (and not just because it didn't fix anything that last time there was socialist education)

I don't think that one can compare education under authoritarian "socialism" (i.e. state capitalism within a single-party authoritarian framework) would be comparable to whatever education would be found in actual socialism (and by that I mean worker ownership and self-management of capital within a democratic framework).

[rotting bones]

I don't think that would fix anything. (and not just because it didn't fix anything that last time there was socialist education)

Personally, I wouldn't describe any historical state as socialist, but if you're going with self-styled "socialists", it did fix this particular problem within the state after a generation. On the other hand, it taught its own brand of hate to promote the interests of its authoritarian leaders, etc. That's a problem with authoritarianism. I have tried to explain the authoritarian consequences of Leninist "democratic centralism" in the Capitalism thread.

That reinforces my hunch that not even socialism/socialist would fix anything.

You'd be surprised at how far education can derail instinct. It convinced entire continents that sex is bad for thousands of years.

I hope you realize that most Muslims don't receive a good Islamic education. Usually, they don't even receive a bad Islamic education. Even though the body of Islamic scholars are not organized like the Catholic church, the majority condemns terrorism every time, with thousands of signatures having been gathered.

Maybe this case will illuminate the problem with lack of standards: Recently, the Taliban set off another bomb in Pakistan during a religious ceremony, killing 50. Traditionally trained scholars say the Taliban are impossible to reason with, even by the low standards of traditional Islamic scholarship.

[keenir]

I honestly can't think of a way to fix traditional ideological shortcomings without state-sponsored socialist education.

I don't think that would fix anything. (and not just because it didn't fix anything that last time there was socialist education)

I don't think that one can compare education under authoritarian "socialism" (i.e. state capitalism within a single-party authoritarian framework) would be comparable to whatever education would be found in actual socialism (and by that I mean worker ownership and self-management of capital within a democratic framework).

I suppose not...*sigh* Given how hard it was to achieve the former, I'm not holding out hope for the latter (at least not on a similar scale)

That reinforces my hunch that not even socialism/socialist would fix anything.

You'd be surprised at how far education can derail instinct. It convinced entire continents that sex is bad for thousands of years.

Welllll, yes and no; it gave societies a pretext to look (further) down on women and anyone associated with selling bodies...but it didn't really cut down on how much people had sex.

[rotting bones]

Welllll, yes and no; it gave societies a pretext to look (further) down on women and anyone associated with selling bodies...but it didn't really cut down on how much people had sex.

It probably did in Puritan (and puritan) periods. IIRC there was one early Anglo-Saxon king who was killed for his "lasciviousness", having too much sex with his lawfully wedded wife.

[rotting bones]

I suppose not...*sigh* Given how hard it was to achieve the former, I'm not holding out hope for the latter (at least not on a similar scale)

Active young people infected with doomerism join fascists like Hamas.

[rotting bones]

I hope you realize that most Muslims don't receive a good Islamic education.

My understanding is that for most Muslims, being a Muslim basically means avoiding pork/alcohol, and doing this short ritual: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-TWCduCWI34

Am I wrong?

[keenir]

I hope you realize that most Muslims don't receive a good Islamic education.

My understanding is that for most Muslims, being a Muslim basically means avoiding pork/alcohol, and doing this short ritual:

Based on your understanding, I think you have a very bizarre set of experiences -- every Muslim you meet seems to be either ready to kill you as soon as you tell them that you're nonpracticing, or are basically the Islamic equivilent of a C&E Christian ("Christmas & Easter" - a play on how those may be the only times such a person attends church services)

Am I wrong?

You certainly could have merged those posts, but thats beside the point. But yes, you are wrong; because of the above - contrary to that, most Muslims are no more like you or your assumption, than they're like me.

EDIT:

I suppose not...*sigh* Given how hard it was to achieve the former, I'm not holding out hope for the latter (at least not on a similar scale)

Active young people infected with doomerism join fascists like Hamas.

I thought we were starting to branch into a small side discussion about the true vs IRL socialists...is that your way of saying that true socialism of the sort described by Travis B., is "doomerism" ?

[rotting bones]

Based on your understanding, I think you have a very bizarre set of experiences -- every Muslim you meet seems to be either ready to kill you as soon as you tell them that you're nonpracticing, or are basically the Islamic equivilent of a C&E Christian ("Christmas & Easter" - a play on how those may be the only times such a person attends church services)

Let's not get carried away. No one has told me they wanted to kill me per se.

But yes, you are wrong; because of the above - contrary to that, most Muslims are no more like you or your assumption, than they're like me.

Why do you say so?

PS. For example, are you thinking about beliefs? Because Islam is uses orthopraxy. Subjective belief (or lack thereof) goes under a "Don't ask. Don't tell." policy.

[rotting bones]

I thought we were starting to branch into a small side discussion about the true vs IRL socialists...is that your way of saying that true socialism of the sort described by Travis B., is "doomerism" ?

If people think is no hope for a better future, fascists are always ready to offer them martyrdom. When people are suffering because of mankind's primitive instincts, and there is no hope of overcoming it, a lot of people will commit suicide by joining the fascists. This connects with your statement about the impossibility of a non-authoritarian socialism.

[keenir]

I thought we were starting to branch into a small side discussion about the true vs IRL socialists...is that your way of saying that true socialism of the sort described by Travis B., is "doomerism" ?

If people think is no hope for a better future, fascists are always ready to offer them martyrdom. When people are suffering because of mankind's primitive instincts, and there is no hope of overcoming it, a lot of people will commit suicide by joining the fascists. This connects with your statement about the impossibility of a non-authoritarian socialism.

No, no it doesn't connect. Unless...

Wait...so, I express the opinion that true socialism is less likely to arise & exist in a USSR-sized nation for decades at a time, than RL socialism did...and your conclusion is that, since true socialism is unlikely, the only other option is to have no hope and therefore fall prey to fascists?

Thats why I think you're an optimist. Not because of comparing you with anyone...but because if you weren't, you'd be out torching everything (anything not currently evil, will fall to evil eventually - best to burn it down before that happens)

Or as we said in my youth, summon Chthulhu and be eaten first.

[Travis B.]

I suppose not...*sigh* Given how hard it was to achieve the former, I'm not holding out hope for the latter (at least not on a similar scale)

Active young people infected with doomerism join fascists like Hamas.

I thought we were starting to branch into a small side discussion about the true vs IRL socialists...is that your way of saying that true socialism of the sort described by Travis B., is "doomerism" ?

The idea that believing in a democratic socialism with the basic idea of that workers shall own and directly democratically manage their workplaces is "doomerism" is very odd to me.