The following is the Wikipedia entry for the Ma’alot massacre:
The Ma’alot massacre was a Palestinian terrorist attack that occurred on 14–15 May 1974 and involved the hostage-taking of 115 Israelis, chiefly school children, which ended in the murder of 25 hostages and six other civilians. It began when three armed members of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP) infiltrated Israel from Lebanon. Soon afterwards they attacked a van, killing two Israeli Arab women while injuring a third, and entered an apartment building in the town of Ma’alot, where they killed a couple and their four-year-old son. From there, they headed for the Netiv Meir Elementary School in Ma’alot, where in the early hours of 15 May 1974 they took hostage more than 115 people including 105 children. Most of the hostages were 14- to 16-years-old students from a high school in Safad on a pre-military Gadna field trip spending the night in Ma’alot.
The hostage-takers soon issued demands for the release of 23 Palestinian militants and 3 others from Israeli prisons, or else they would kill the students. The Israeli side agreed, but the hostage-takers failed to get an expected coded message from Damascus. On 15 May, minutes before the 18:00 deadline set by the DFLP for killing the hostages, the Sayeret Matkal commandoes stormed the building. During the takeover, the hostage-takers killed children with grenades and automatic weapons. Ultimately, 25 hostages, including 22 children, were killed and 68 more were injured.
Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.
Anybody who thinks the Palestinians want peace at all are deluded. I have said it before (I can be as repetitive in my speech as the Palestians are with barbarism) and I’ll say it again. They do not even want victory, “From the River to the Sea” but an eternal jihad. If Israel falls Europe is next. All of Europe.
This is the selfish reason I want Palestinianism to be crushed as an ideology. It’s nihilism. It isn’t interested in building anything.
When the Israelis withdrew from Gaza in 2005, followed by the election of Hamas, what happened? They smashed up farms, greenhouses and other resources. They focused on using aid to build a vast infrastructure of tunnels, accumulated weapons, all to initiate attacks on Israel.
Yes, some of the Gaza population, most obviously children, aren’t to blame for the monstrosity that Islamism represents. But I find it very difficult to find much sympathy for a large number of the population.
On this day of infamy two years ago, it’s important to realise that this is what the scum of Hamas desire for Israel, and what their cheerleaders want for the West.
You have to be careful with language. You say “children”. Western people picture toddlers, under-10s, primary school children. Yet “children” means under 18. Yet half of under-18s in Gaza would consider themsleves old enough to be armed combatants and would be willing to shoot you. Talking about “children” in Gaza is speaking a different language to the person you are talking to.
What jgh said.
More or less:
It doesn’t to me.
Sometimes, especially in places like the middle east with complex cultures going back thousands of years, it is hard to understand the complex moral and political issues involved.
However, when people deliberately kill children to achieve political ends then the lines are not blurred. Right and wrong are pretty crystal clear.
In Israel in war the soldier puts that little girl behind him to protect the her from harm. In Gaza the soldier puts the little girl in from of him to protect himself from harm.
In Israel when a soldier deliberately kills a civilian from the other side, he is put on trial. In Gaza when a soldier deliberately kills a civilian from the other side he is celebrated through the streets and receives a reward.
In Israel hospitals treat Israelis and Gazans with equal medical care. In Gaza hospitals are used as a shield to protect rocket emplacements and military headquarters.
It isn’t hard to chose which side to be on.
Johnathan Pearce – yes Gaza was the “two state solution” and we have all seen how that turned out from 2005 onwards.
The original “two state solution” was Trans Jordan (now Jordan) – which was the vast majority of the “British Mandate of Palestine”.
The whole area (both sides of the Jordan river – up to the sea) was very thinly populated up to Victorian times (even Jerusalem was only a small town – and the largest group of people in that town were JEWS) – it was the investment in the area (by Jews and others – for there was foreign Christian investment even under the Ottoman Empire) that led to followers of Islam (from Egypt and elsewhere) coming into the land – and it was Western medical care that allowed their babies to survive.
Far from “genocide” (the propaganda “projects” the genocidal desires of groups such as Hamas on to their intended victims – pretending that the people these Islamic groups wish to exterminate are out to exterminate innocent Muslims) the Muslim population of the area has vastly increased – due to the medicine (and so on) of the “evil Jews”.
@ Paul Marks
Could you provide sources for your various comments? I have read similar things but have found it hard to find anything concrete. One thing that sticks in my mind was Mark Twain (I think?) talking about how desolate the land was when he went to visit. I have also read things that refute this.
I am not questioning your reliability, I would just like to have some properly backed ammo when people start blathering on about Palestine.
Fraser,
I entirely agree with your comment except for this:
In Gaza the soldier puts the little girl in from of him to protect himself from harm.
Yes, that is true but it is not the only reason Hamas et. al. do this. They actively want dead Arab children.
Every culture has defining art forms. In Renaissance Italy it was painting, Nineteenth Century German was orchestral music, in the modern developed World it is computer games and in Gaza it is shroud-waving.
And people fall for it every time. I cannot recall another war or conflict or whatever where the casualty figures just came from one side and practically nobody challenged them. Or a war in which the propaganda sought to maximize their own losses.
I agree with almost all of the above.
The added difficulty with the children (say under 13 if you want), is that they are indoctrinated from age two to want to kill Jews and to achieve martyrdom. Their schoolbooks (funded by us via UNWRA) teach them counting by counting dead Jews!
Fraser Orr, it’s not hard to understand the moral and political issues involved when it comes to muslims. They follow the teachings and admonishments in the Koran, which basically amount to: muslims good, all others evil and must be subjugated or killed.
Tim – sources.
I think any reference work, even leftist Wikipedia, will back up that (for example) the population of the land “between the river and the sea” (and Trans Jordan as well) was very small even at the start of the 19th century. I do not believe I have written anything that is contested. And the Islamic population of the area “between the river and the sea” is vastly greater NOW (2025) than it was in 1948. Unlike the Jewish population in Islamic countries (the Jews were in such areas before the Muslims were – indeed before Islam existed) which has been largely driven out.
When Islamists, and their leftist allies, talk of Ethnic Cleansing – they name the wrong group of people, it is the Jews, not the Muslims, who have been ethnically cleansed from many lands.
But I could be mistaken. For example, have people told you that the Jews did NOT leave Gaza in 2005 – people who claim there was still an “occupation”?
It would be hard to deal with people who are in such blatant denial.
Naming books would not really help – as they would just deny the books as well.
@Henry Cybulski
Fraser Orr, it’s not hard to understand the moral and political issues involved when it comes to muslims. They follow the teachings and admonishments in the Koran, which basically amount to: muslims good, all others evil and must be subjugated or killed.
The Jews follow the teaching of the Tannakh, which includes instructions to kill people who don’t follow the Sabbath, or stone to death a woman found not a virgin on her wedding night. Or on the subject of war (against the Amalekites) to ensure that they kill not just the men and women, not just the children but even the babies still nursing at their mothers’ breast. Fortunately they don’t do those things, fortunately the war in Gaza was not conducted that way, just as most Muslims don’t subjugate or kill non Muslims, in fact, in some Muslim countries Christians are safer and have more liberty than in many countries that are predominantly Christian. In another holy book we are told “by their fruits you shall know them”.
In Israel there are definitely some complex issues of culture and morality, but that doesn’t mean that it isn’t hard to know the good guys from the bad guys. As many have said, if Israel laid down their weapons there would quickly be no Jews. If the Gazans laid down their weapons, as being negotiated right now, the Gazans would prosper and live in peace. Again, not hard to know the good guys from the bad guys.
Fraser Orr, I specifically mentioned muslims and the teachings and admonishments of the Koran because that is a determining factor in how many muslims view the world, in the past and up to the present.
I doubt the Tannakh is a determining factor for many Jews today. Prove me wrong.
It looks like defeat today – failure to destroy Hamas and the other groups.
The concentration on the hostages, over the last two years, distracted attention from the task of destroying Hamas and the other groups – and now there is failure.
The Islamic world will note this weakness, this failure – as they will also note the failure to destroy the regime in Iran or even the forces in Yemen.
Concern to not cause large scale Muslim civilian casualties is part of the reason for the failures – and yet the world believes that Israel has slaughtered tens of thousands of Muslim civilians – because that is what the media say.
“There has been no military defeat – we have won every battle!”
Won every battle – but not won the war.
What is the point of Israel sending terrorists to prison if it is going to let them out again – whenever some group takes hostages?
And what is the point of Israel sacrificing the lives of soldiers going into somewhere – if it is just going to pull out again?
The Prime Minister of Israel calls this “moral victory” – is that coded language for DEFEAT?
Paul:
Sadly, I agree with you. The hard hearted but rational response to the hostage taking (but also one which is impossible in a democracy) would have been to treat them as if they were dead already, which in fact many of them were.
Now, every terrorist knows that hostage taking works. It stymies the Israelis, and enable the terrorists to negotiate the return of their fellow criminals in return for some, but not all, hostages.
It is a sad day. The only response to October 7th should have been a swift and crushing victory. The Israelis may have been blamed for civilian casualties, but they have been anyway. The best way is to get it over with quickly. Taking two years to fail to defeat a terror group occupying a area of about five miles by twenty-five has been a bad mistake. Moderation in war is madness.
JohnK
Yes indeed – Israel should have gone in with full force after October 7th 2023, when they choose NOT to do that – Mr Ed predicted defeat, and, tragically, he has been proven correct.
Will Israel survive this weakness? I do not know.
Part of the problem has been the Israeli left (who get a lot of foreign money and other help) – their endless protests “stop the war”, “get the hostages back” and-so-on, but the Prime Minister of Israel should have known the Israeli left would behave like this – they were doing weekly mass protests BEFORE October 7th 2023.
As for President Trump – he always seeks to make-a-deal, that is who he is.
That is admirable a lot of the time – BUT there are people committed to the cause of evil (and they know very well that it is evil that they serve – they enjoy their wickedness, their indulging of the passions), and with them no deal should ever be made – and no “talks” entered into.
There is nothing to discuss with such people.
We know what they are like, for we all have this darkness within ourselves (I certainly do) – the only difference is they have embraced the darkness, totally and by their own free will choice. That is who Hamas are – and that is who the members of the other groups are.
What would happen if Trump or President Vance were to read the Koran to a joint session of Congress (so the MSM can’t ignore it)? Read the parts of the Koran telling the faithful how to treat non-Muslims. And then declare that the only “peaceful Muslims” are those who publicly denounce those parts of the Koran and anyone who adheres to them.
Anyone who does not support that statement is is giving “aid and comfort” to a declared enemy fighting force. Or maybe they are part of that fighting force…just waiting for orders!
In the US, can we deport 10 million Muslims? Allegedly, we’ve deported 2M illegals so far (I’m skeptical of the Administrations claims, but let’s grant that it’s A LOT)
Would this lead to WW III? Is now the time to do this?
@Henry Cybulski
I doubt the Tannakh is a determining factor for many Jews today. Prove me wrong.
You are asking me to prove that Jews consider the Tannakh a “determining factor in how [they] view the world”. You can’t be serious, right? Offer a Jewish person a bacon sandwich and see if they think it is a book full of pointless old rules to be ignored. And if in the minutiae then certainly in the larger questions of morality and justice.
@JohnK
Sadly, I agree with you. The hard hearted but rational response to the hostage taking (but also one which is impossible in a democracy) would have been to treat them as if they were dead already, which in fact many of them were.
God, that is very easy to say when it isn’t your wife or husband or daughter or son. But I understand why you say it because it is inconceivable that this situation could be resolved.
I am a little shocked by the attitude I am reading here about Trump’s peace plan. Now I fully understand that the proof of the pudding is in the eating and Hamas are hardly a person with whom we can rely on their word. So I am definitely of the view that I’ll believe it when I see it.
But if it works in the trajectory it is going is it nothing short of the miracle. It is a total defeat of Hamas. The release of all remaining hostages, Hamas laying down their arms and leaving the country, Hamas having no role in the government of Gaza, an international force without US troops to govern the territory as a short term measure, IDF troops get to go home to their families, and it looks like Lebanon and Syria are going to join the Abraham accords, no doubt followed by a cascade of other Arab countries, international investment from mainly Arab countries to turn Gaza from a hell hole into a lovely place to live.
No peace deal is perfect, and for sure I’d like to see the perpetrators of this atrocity hanging from a tree. But a lot of them we can’t hang from a tree because their bodies have been vaporized. Most, if not all of them are dead.
If this actually works and brings peace and prosperity to Gaza and safety to Israel, it is nothing short of a miracle. And there is literally only one person who could have made it happen. A dozen Arab states working together to solve the problem, Netanyahu humbled with an apology to Qatar allowing them to join in and use their influence. Honestly, it is the greatest piece of diplomacy in a hundred years. Trump should be getting the next five Nobel Peace Prizes for this.
And yet here we armchair cowboys are sitting nitpicking the minutiae of the deal. My mind cannot conceive of that way of thinking. I think we on the libertarian/conservative side need to learn how to take the big W.
I do not know the details of the peace plan, but as far as I can see, it leaves Hamas intact, so it will return to its former strength and sense itself invincible. Even in a war, after 2 years, in a relatively small area, it gets supplies from Egypt (at the long end of a supply chain across the sparse Sinai) and the IDF seems to have been powerless to prevent that.
I have to wonder if the timing of this deal is coming from President Trump hoping to get the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize, announced Friday (tomorrow), a meaningless bauble that long ago sought to ape its imitator, The Lenin Peace Prize and is awarded by Norwegian MPs, who would sooner award the Prize posthumously to Pol Pot than President Trump.
Should the fate of the hostages be a consideration? Of course for Israel it is very important, but what is seen and what is not seen should also be a consideration. As Gandalf put it:
I hope that I am wrong and all will live happily ever after, but this looks about as convincing a victory as if the Allies had still been fighting in Berlin against the Werewolves in April 1947 and they then came to a deal.
It is either going to be a win, in that Hamas will lose its role as a strong influence, and the active fighting will stop for quite some time, or . . .
. . . it is going to be a win because it will allow Trump to point to specific promises made and broken, and will allow him to forcefully assist in the ultimate wipeout of the Hamas influence in the region.
If the many bad-faith actors and screamers lose the ability to claim “Israel did it!” – through establishment of specific promises and then the clear violation of those promises – 80% of the political pressure to preserve Hamas will go away, I think.
So this will be a win for Trump no matter how Hamas acts. It will either bring on regional peace, or it will allow for the sort of response I thought should have been applied two years ago.
(The difference won’t be a function of Palestinian promises being any more sincere or meaningful this time – it will be a function of Trump’s personality, which requires a specific violation of an agreement that HE brokered before he lets Hell rain down on the violators.)
@Mr Ed
You can read the peace plan here: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c70155nked7o
I understand your skepticism, Hamas are not at all good faith actors, however, it does require them to turn over their arms and no longer be in government and, if they want, leave the country with amnesty. And it requires that the government of Gaza be done by an international body headed by Trump.
But what is the long term? Surely it will all form back up again? Yes, surely you can’t stamp out world hate, and especially with these crazy fuckers. So what is the counter to this? It is three important things:
1. They will no longer be in charge in Gaza, Gaza will be run by an international board including Trump and the loathsome Tony Blair, who, for all his faults, is certainly not a terrorist.
2. The large majority of large countries in he middle east have combined together under Trump’s leadership with a unified message to Hamas: “fuck off and die”.
3. If Trump is successful and restores some success, sanity and prosperity to Gaza within the timeframe while Hamas are regrouping it will be far harder to turn back the clock. Part of the success of Hamas comes from the fact that they leave their people in utter poverty and oppression and so people are always looking for an excuse, which is redirected to that universal bogeyman “the Jews”. It is a lot harder (though my no means impossible) to convince people to send their kids out as suicide bombers when your life is actually worth living.
I hope that I am wrong and all will live happily ever after,
There is no such thing as happily ever after. All we can ever hope for is to solve problems for the next few years and hope that in doing so we set up a zeitgeist in which these sorts of issues are less likely to reoccur. And I think Trump’s plan has the possibility of doing that.
Maybe it will all fall apart, but maybe not. And it is better to try than to sit around grumbling.
But let’s hold our breath and watch to see if, at the very least, the hostages, both dead and alive, are returned to their families. And then hope that that portents a better future for this troubled part of the world.
Greg WA – the media would do what they do to the leader of the Freedom Party in the Netherlands, they would not report the words that President Trump or Vice President Vance read out from the Koran (from the Medina verses – which supersede the Mecca verses) or from the Hadiths (of whatever grade of reliability) or from the life of Mohammed.
Instead the media would scream that President Trump and Vice President Vance were being “Islamophobic” and “racist” – and the education system (the schools and universities) would chant the same – and so would “moderate Republicans”.
There is a reason the West is dying – and it is NOT that the attacks from Islam are harsher than in past centuries, they-are-not-harsher. The West is dying because its own cultural leadership is destroying the West – and cultural leadership includes the mainline churches – both Catholic and Protestant, not just secular cultural leadership.
No amount of fancy weapons and technology can make up for “the treason of the intellectuals”.
Mr Ed – I do not know the motives of President Trump and the others.
But, yes, I know defeat when I see it – and this is defeat. I fear there will be worse, much worse, defeats in the future.
Mr Ed,
Agreed. In the BBC coverage this morning there was scant reference to the fact that hundreds of terrorists are being released for the Israeli hostages. The moral abomination of this “deal” is not held up in the light very long.
Other questions:
How are those tasked with supervising this deal to know if Hamas really has put aside its weapons? What’s the verification process?
Has the command structure of Hamas been destroyed or not?
How can the rebuilding of Gaza and removal of Islamist ideology in schools and so on take place until Hamas and its peers are eradicated and surrender completely? Are we not simply giving them a chance to revive the Intifada on another front in a few years?
Does Trump think this is a sham and that if Hamas cranks up its violence, it gives Israel moral cover to finish it off?
Should those now defined as Palestinian refugees be resettled in nearby states and told that refugee status must end if offered a new home?
Final question: who the fuck cares about a peace prize, given the kind of people who’ve received it?
Well at least this year the Nobel Committee has made a good call and awarded the prize to the incredibly brave Maria Corina Machado of Venezuela. That should make it harder for the thugs in Venezuela to contemplate her murder.
Well at least this year the Nobel Committee has made a good call and awarded the prize to the incredibly brave Maria Corina Machado of Venezuela. That should make it harder for the thugs in Venezuela to contemplate her murder.
How are those tasked with supervising this deal to know if Hamas really has put aside its weapons? What’s the verification process?
JP, you fancy taking a trip on the Hamas Underground to check? I mean what could possibly go wrong? You will be accussed of spying and held hostage. Either that or it will be the UN and they shall see no evil.
Has the command structure of Hamas been destroyed or not?
Much of it has been but that doesn’t matter. People can be replaced and in an organisation that extols “martydom” above any other virtue I suspect they have extremely robust processes for promotion.
How can the rebuilding of Gaza and removal of Islamist ideology in schools and so on take place until Hamas and its peers are eradicated and surrender completely? Are we not simply giving them a chance to revive the Intifada on another front in a few years?
Rebuild to what? Obviously there will be a flood of aid and then Hamas (or a rebrand) will use that to kick-off again. This is at best a hudna.
Does Trump think this is a sham and that if Hamas cranks up its violence, it gives Israel moral cover to finish it off?
Interesting question. I suspect Trump saw it as his best shot at the Nobel (which he covets). Of course it gives Israel the moral cover but then so did 7/10 and decades of atrocities of varying magnitude. The big question is, “Will it be perceived that way?” The answer to that is, “No”. Hamas now completely owns the narrative they bought with 24/7 images of their dead babies. The narrative matters much more than JDAMs.
Should those now defined as Palestinian refugees be resettled in nearby states and told that refugee status must end if offered a new home?
Well, where? Jordan and Egypt really don’t want them and for very good reasons. Anyway, playing at being “refugees” brings sympathy. This is why the likes of Hamas don’t genuinely want a state. They don’t want a solution (other than, perhaps, “From the River to The Sea”) because it would obviate the need for violent jihadis and that is what Hamas are. It is not what they do, it is their essence.
The obvious take-homes from all of this are:
1. Hamas gets back hundreds of it’s “soldiers” from Israeli prisons who are not going to become plumbers, podiatrists or chartered accountants are they?
2. Israel has lost a serious opportunity to destroy Hamas. They probably fumbled that from the start.
3. The Palestinian “cause” has gained enormous kudos in The West. When Hamas ceases the hudna it will be widely perceived as due to some sort of Israeli aggression.
4. Taking hostages works. We shall see a lot more hostage-taking.
Fraser Orr, you started with the “Jews follow the teaching of the Tannakh, which includes instructions to kill people who don’t follow the Sabbath, or stone to death a woman found not a virgin on her wedding night” and later focus on Jews refusing to eat a bacon sandwich as if that somehow proves your original thesis.
There is an enormous gulf between killing Sabbath non-observers and stoning non-virgins in the past, and refusing to eat bacon.
Fraser Orr and Henry Cybulski.
The followers of Mohammed (of whom bobby b seems to think I am one – for, of all things, defending free will – moral responsibility) in his lifetime, used to call out to Jews “raise your hand”.
This was not a call to surrender, male Jews who surrendered were killed anyway, it was a dig at the Jewish practice of placing one’s hand over parts of the Torah (to be found as parts of the Old Testament in every Christian Bible) when reading it – this was because it was normally read aloud, and it was feared by Jews that someone not learned in the Talmud (the written down debates of rabbis) would, if they heard certain things read aloud, go out and do these things.
The point of the followers of Mohammed was that everything in scripture was to be followed – you do not put your hand on it, that is what they meant by “raise your hand”.
The Bible (Jewish and Christian parts) is written by lots of different people at different times – very little of the Bible even claims to be the direct word of God. Even the gospels offer different accounts – for example of what people observed at the empty tomb of Jesus.
All of the Koran is claimed to be the direct word of God – words delivered to Mohammed by the Angel Gabriel.
So they are very different works.
Nickm and Johnathan Pearce – yes the deal is a disaster, at least that is how it now appears. Let us hope there is some major thing we are all overlooking.
Mr Ed – yes a good choice for the Nobel Prize, certainly better than Barack Obama who was given the prize before he was President – indeed before he had done anything at all – thus proving Johnathan Pearce’s point that the prize is often a sick joke.
There is a debate in the Catholic Church over whether the Pope can change doctrine (for example on homosexual acts or the death penalty for murder – it is alleged, claimed, that Pope Francis was edging towards claiming that the death penalty for murder was always wrong, in contradiction to what previous Popes had ruled, and it is alleged, claimed, that Pope Francis was edging towards saying that homosexual acts were NOT morally wrong).
Contrary to what critics of the Roman Catholic Church have sometimes implied – it has been the mainstream view that a Pope can NOT change doctrine – but just as it was once said that the role of the Monarch in Parliament was to clarify what the law has-always-been, so there are theological versions of Sir William Blackstone in law – who claimed that whatever Parliament said (say Parliament passed a statute demanding that everyone with brown eyes be burned alive) was LAW.
The mainstream view, for example of Chief Justice Sir Edward Coke and Chief Justice Sir John Holt, was that Parliament could NOT do such things – but since Sir William Blackstone (a disguised, disguised – for Blackstone claimed to support Common Law with its Natural Law foundation, follower of Mr Thomas Hobbes and his Legal Positivism?) the mainstream view has been that the will of Parliament is law – that “law” is the whims (commands) of the state.
There are people who claim that churches, Roman Catholic, Anglican, Orthodox, Methodist, Baptist…… can CHANGE Christian doctrine – declare it to be he opposite of what it was on XYZ matters (perhaps even on such things as baby killing – see the view of the new Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury on this matter).
No such debate can really exist in Islam – Islamic doctrine can not be changed by any human being, only God can change Islamic doctrine.
So people who want Islam to change in XYZ ways – do not understand its nature.
NickM, your answers are the ones I was thinking of. I suggested that these are the sort of things that the “journalists” out there put, but apart from my old boss, Andrew Neil, few bother to do so.
This is not the core focus of the OP, but with some honourable exceptions, the way that the media have covered all this is beyond awful in its herd mentality, incuriosity, sentimentality, lack of transparency over sourcing, and more.
@Henry Cybulski
Fraser Orr, you started with the “Jews follow the teaching of the Tannakh, which includes instructions to kill people who don’t follow the Sabbath, or stone to death a woman found not a virgin on her wedding night” and later focus on Jews refusing to eat a bacon sandwich as if that somehow proves your original thesis.
That is the whole point. You are saying “watch out for the Muslims — their holy book advocates bad things”, I’m just pointing out that lots of holy books advocate bad things, so rather you should judge Muslims by what they do, not what their holy book says. And the VAST majority of Muslims are happy to live in peace and get on with their neighbors. If some Christian goes nuts and murders a gay person we would not condemn all of Christianity because of the bad things it advocates in its holy book.
Fraser:
I hope I am wrong, but at the end of this “deal”, I rather doubt Hamas will have gone away, or that they will have given up their arms. They are hard core terrorists. It is what they are. It is what they do. And hundreds of them have just been released by Israel as part of the “deal”.
That is why I would not have started from here. Israel attempted to fight an ethical war, sparing civilians as much as possible. They still got the blame for every civilian death. A thousand Israeli troops have died. Do their lives matter less than the hostages? The upshot is that 60% of Britons now believe that the Israelis are treating the Palestinians the same way the Nazis treated the Jews. I must have missed the gas chambers Israel set up in Gaza.
That is why I say that within a few weeks of October 7th Israel should have launched an all out war on Hamas in Gaza. The destruction and bloodshed cannot have been worse that what has happened over two years, but which has not resulted in Hamas being destroyed. If they are not destroyed, they will come back. That is what I fear.
JohnK,
Hamas may not come back as “Hamas” but under a different name but they will come back.
Nick:
Maybe. But they are so thick they may well keep the Hamas brand. The point is they are down, but not out, which to me, implies that as soon as they can, they will be back, whatever they call themselves.
Fraser Orr. I judge Muslims by the wars and terror they have waged against Christians, Jews and anyone they deem to be an infidel going back many centuries and up to the present. It ain’t Christians killing Jews at synagogues and it ain’t Jews and Christians that explode bombs at concerts and on buses and that drive vehicles into crowds enjoying a day out or some street festivity.
I judge them by the way they treat their womanfolk, I judge them by the atrocities they commit against young girls and woman throughout Europe who just want to be left alone and live without fear.
I judge them by the miniscule number of your peaceful Muslims who condemn all those things.
I judge them by the seeming refusal to appreciate the cultures and society of the countries that welcomed them with open arms.
I judge them by the proportion of crimes they commit compared to the native population.
Yes, not all of them, but there is enough of a pattern to draw conclusions.
Henry,
I appreciate your generalisation and it is not without some merit but as a rampant individualist I do not like generalisations about identity groups. I don’t like the concept ofidentity groups anyway.
We are all a set of a myriad of intersecting things and they’re not all entirely cohesive. I am a religious agnostic* and an ardent technophile but if you were to judge me on upvotes on Quora I’m seen primarily as knowing about the theological issues in the works of JRR Tolkien. Surprised me.
I do not judge Muslims as a group. As I have said here before you can be a good person and a bad Muslim but if you are a good Muslim you can’t be a good person. I’ve known a lot of bad Muslims over the years.
Instead… I judge the ideology of Islam and I find it morally bankrupt and cowardly.
Morally bankrupt? The true test of the truly righteous is to resist temptation, not to live in a society that doesn’t allow it under the threat of strict punishment. Punishment not so much for failing to control one’s passions but for being the temption. Think, “uncovered meat” and all that. In that regard I am much more moral in my agency than Muhammed thought men to be. Islam is sexist. It is sexist against men. It is sexist against me. I make decisions between my ears, not between my legs.
Cowardly? The truly brave risk death without the belief that an infinite paradise awaits if they die. They do it because it is the right thing to do or it is a necessary thing to do. Or because there is nobody else who can do it. Actively seeking to be a shaheed is not courage – it’s the easy way out. Obviously made a much easier choice if you live in the squalor and despair that the likes of Hamas have deliberately engineered in places like Gaza.
*A principled agnostic by which I mean the existence of God is not a question that can be in principle answered. I find it very difficult to see how any ontological arguments for God’s existence don’t lead inexorably to either critically weakening the concept of God or to modal collapse – conflating contingency with necessity. From St Anselm to Kurt Gödel nobody has got that bird to fly.
I suppose that someone, someone who was not paying close attention, might, in the time of Sir William Blackstone (mid 1700s) might have considered Parliament a check on the state – rather than part of the state. After all being a Member of Parliament was not then a “job” (indeed Members of Parliament were not paid till 1911) and had being a minister (or taking money from the taxpayers in some other way) been a disqualification from voting or being a Member of Parliament, then British history might (perhaps) have been much better.
Temptation – yes NickM, people must be free or no moral improvement can be made – as Gladstone put it, I am certain that it will NOT be by the actions of the state that there will be moral improvement of the people (this was really an answer to semi Collectivists such as Lord Stanley – who became Earl of Derby).
Islam…..
I judge Islam by the teachings of its founder, Muhammed – Mohammed (spelling varies), and by his personal example – what he actually did.
I do not think any Islamic thinker would disagree with that – indeed it would be strange to judge Islam any other way.
If someone does NOT like the teachings of Mohammed, and does not like the personal example of Mohammed (what he did) then they are NOT a Muslim – although they may be from a Muslim family.
Islam revolves around what Mohammed taught and what he did, that is what Islam is.
If someone said “I think the New Testament is evil and I think Jesus was evil – I am Christian” that statement would be rather odd.
Ditto – if someone says “I think the Koran is evil and I think Mohammed is evil – I am a Muslim” that statement would be rather odd.
Mohammed himself had a word for people who pretended to be Muslims, but did not follow his doctrines (help take the goods of non Muslims as a form of tax and subject them to ritual humiliation, reject non Muslim friends and family – and so on) he called them “hypocrites” and held that they should be executed.
These days (not in the past when there was less ignorance) one often hears statements to the effect of “religions are much the same”, or “Christianity and Islam are much the same”, or “Judaism and Islam are much the same – they teach the same moral, ethical, principles”.
These statements are FALSE – they may not be dishonest (as the people making the false statements may honestly believe the false statements), but they are FALSE statements.
As for the “arguments” of those who push such statements – these “arguments” tend to boil down to “we will put you in prison you Islamophobic, racist, bigot”.
Although it should be noted that (like “Progressive Jews”) most “mainstream” Christian high-up (there are some good ones – but they do not tend to get promoted) clerics (Catholic or Protestant) in most Western countries, rarely talk about religion – instead concentrating on “the state should spend more money on XYZ and impose more regulations – this will help the poor” and “open the borders even more – show compassion to the migrants!” (code for “Death to the West!”).
So people can be forgiven for thinking that Islamic scholars are just as uninterested in their religion as most mainstream Christian high-up clerics are uninterested in their religion (instead being interested in “the Social Gospel” of “Social Justice”).
But this is NOT so – unlike most senior Christian high-ups (and unlike “Progressive Jews”), Islamic scholars are very interested in their religion – and take it very seriously.
JohnK – 60% of British people believe these vicious lies? Is the percentage that high?
Fraser Orr – ignoring what Mohammed taught (which is to be found in the Koran and the reliable Hadiths) and ignoring what he personally did (how he is the “perfect model of conduct”) would be folly.
“This person has not yet betrayed me, although he follows a doctrine that says he should betray me, when the time is right, – therefore I am going to trust him” – is not wise.
Mohammed himself pledged peace and friendship to the Jewish tribes of Arabia (who had lived there for centuries) – he then launched a surprise attack, and when people (foolishly) surrendered, he killed all the men and enslaved the women (in reply for the murder of her family – a Jewish woman, whom he had enslaved, poisoned Mohammed – and although he survived, his health remained bad till his death some years later).
Remember – he is a “perfect model of conduct” and his example is to be followed.
Anyone who remembers how the CIA section head in Beirut was treated after his capture (a few years ago now) knows that “do not let them take me alive”, a standard line in Victorian and early 20th century (back when people understood these things – and were not sent to prison by Western governments for the “crime” of telling the truth) literature on such a situation, is not melodramatic – it is sound-practical advice.
Warning – do NOT look into the details of this if intense horror has a bad effect upon you.
“If you look into the void too long, it looks back into you”.
Can anyone explain how an illiterate sand-pirate could write such a document, and then wait a few hundred years for it to actually be “published; with there being at least 23 “recognized” versions extant?
The Koran is an untidy political tract with a few sprinkles of theosophical “thought”.
It dictates EVERY thought and deed of the “faithful”.
The keen may also like to delve into a character called “The Twelfth Imam”.
Then keep a close eye on an Israeli archaeological site in a place called “Meggido”.
Bruce – there are two difficulties regarding what you have typed.
Firstly -the followers of Islam, both Sunni and Shia (both “12er” Shia and other forms of Shia – as well as the Sunni majority of Islam), are obliged (by the principles of their faith) to kill you for what you have said.
But also – the “international community” (the “rules based international order”), including most certainly its branch in the United Kingdom (which controls the government and all institutions) would want to persecute you, and indeed put you in prison, for saying such things.
“But I am telling the truth” – even if that is the case, I would remind you that the British authorities, and indeed the international establishment generally (in Australia and most other nations), have a deep hatred for the truth – not just about Islam, but about many things.