A few minutes ago Rachel Moiselle tweeted this,
Sundown is soon and religious British Jews will be turning on their phones to learn about what happened.
I am so sorry.
She was referring to this:
Two Jewish people have died in a car ramming and stabbing attack at a synagogue in Manchester.
The attack came on Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish religious calendar, and is being treated by police as a terror incident.
Police say they know the identity of the attacker, who was shot dead by armed officers at the scene.
I, too, wonder what happened, and I’m not just talking about the name of today’s attacker. Britain did not used to be like this.
I have seen many condemnations of this act of terror from prominent Muslims and other supporters of the Palestinian cause. I think most of them are sincere. But they must confront the fact that hatred of Jews has long been commonplace among British Muslims and is now rampant.
From another angle, it has also long been commonplace to mock those who say that their “thoughts and prayers” are with the victims and the bereaved whenever there is a mass murder. I do not share this view. If you pray, please pray for the congregation of Heaton Park synagogue tonight. And whether you pray or not, think about them. Think about what we can do to protect British Jews in a country that they once thought would be a safe haven.
Unlike many, I do not think that censorship of hate speech – note the absence of scare quotes – will help. When I was growing up there was no censorship and nor were there any guards outside synagogues. Let the people who recently chanted “From Manchester to Gaza, globalise the Intifada” be heard. Let them hear themselves.
Alas, Natalie, a lot of what I heard from muslim “community leaders” tended very heavily towards, “We really don’t want a backlash”. I thought that insensitive at the least/
Such things hardly ever happen in places where law-abiding citizens can carry a weapon.
An armed society IS a more polite society.
Ultimately, any society that denies its citizens that right will fall to the people who do not obey the laws.
Yet again the words of Norm MacDonald ring true.
On a more serious note over the past 20 years Jews in England have found it necessary to employ security guards at our places of worship and to organise rotas of parents to protect our children on the way to and from school. We are told by the English police to hide the badges of our faith in public for fear of causing provocation by our mere existence. Muslim men have driven around Jewish areas of North London in broad daylight shouting through a megaphone “Kill the Jews, Rape their women” yet the CPS decided not to prosecute. This deadly attack on our holiest day comes as little surprise.
Starmer has sprung into action and just ordered a couple of million pairs of steel gauntlets so they can continue to sit on their hands without any more discomfort.
Last time there were a terrorist attack in Manchester, the establishment wanted us to ‘not look back in anger.’
I preferred Morrissey’s response to that:
Martin,
Proof a stuck-record sometimes plays the right tune…
I have seen his name mentioned several times, recently, on Instapundit.
Could somebody please enlighten me as to what those specific words were?
SG: A tweet by McDonald as follows: “What terrifies me is if ISIS were to detonate a nuclear device and kill 50 million Americans. Imagine the backlash against peaceful Muslims?”
Backlash? Muslim communities are worried about the backlash caused by tommorow’s train bombing.
@bobby b
Such things hardly ever happen in places where law-abiding citizens can carry a weapon.
Although I agree with your thoughts on this, one thing I am surprised at is that the police shot the guy dead. Very rarely do police in Britain carry a firearm, so why were there armed officers there?
For sure, were they not I don’t doubt it would have been a lot worse, but there are limits to what even a good guy with a gun can do.
I would not blame a single British Jew from packing up and doing aliyah, thereby contributing to the prosperity of Israel and the further diminishment of the UK.
Why we would ever want to side with screaming Islamists who can offer us nothing but further bloodshed and monstrous fanaticism over the Jews – who represent just about every successful virtue of knowledge and progress in the West – defeats me.
Thank you bobby!
Once again, from the west side of the pond, looking at britain it seems a lot like 1932 Germany. Making Aliyah is not unreasonable. And if going to Israel is not feasible, it is time for Jews in britain to look for another country where they will be safer from state sponsored/protected violence. And wherever they end up, learning competence with firearms would be a good thing for Jews.
For that matter, it would not be bad advice for british citizens who value freedom.
Subotai Bahadur
Rather than Jews leaving Britain, I’d rather them stay and force the Muslims to leave Britain.
Clearly, the UK needs common sense car control.
How and Why? Islam is the defacto increasingly the official British religion by the protection that the establishment gives to its members.
Jihad.
FGM.
Death for apostates.
Death for blasphemy.
The concept of Dhimmi.
Death for homosexuals.
Shariah supremacy over secular law.
A religion that cannot be accommodated to modernity because it’s bible is the revealed word of Allah.
A doctrinal murderous hatred of Christianity and Jewry.
How long should a tolerant country tolerate the intolerably intolerant? When do we collectively get to a majority view that there is no prospect of assimilation and we’ve had enough of this shit?
As Tom Lehrer sang, many years ago:
Oh the Protestants hate the Catholics
And the Catholics hate the Protestants
And the Hindus hate the Muslims
And everybody hates the Jews
It is wiser to force the Woke to shut up or leave Britain. If the Muslims go and the Woke remain, then the latter will just find another set of henchmen. Witness the US.
@Fraser Orr –
Although UK police are not generally armed, we do have specialist firearms teams for dealing with armed incidents and inevitably Islamic attacks such as this which have become more frequent in recent years.
When dealing with potential suicide bombers (the guy had what appeared to be bombs strapped to his chest), the police have to deal with this as real even if it looks pretty fake and the standard approach is to shoot the suicide bomber if he might detonate which seems to have been what happened here.
Obviously, my thoughts go out to the Jewish community at this time. This is the consequence of letting rabid antisemitism run riot in the UK because Labour need the electoral support of the UK Muslim community.
The attacker was following the example of Muhammed – who wiped out the Jewish communities in Arabia.
And the attacker was following the example of the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem who, in the 1920s and 1930s, tried to wipe out the Jews in the Holy Land and who was a friend and ally of Mr Hitler and Mr Himmler.
If it is not already illegal in Britain to type what I have just typed, it soon will be.
Anyone who tells the truth about these matters should mentally prepare themselves for a visit from the British police.
Starmer cuts a wretched figure.
Thoughts will all Jewish people, secular or other.
“First they come for the Saturday people – but then they come for the Sunday people”, and the atheists as well.
Again, if it is not already illegal to type that in Britain – it soon will be.
It may well be true that Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer is a wretched figure – but the problem is not him, the problem is the entire establishment.
It appears now that at least one of the dead Jews was shot by the police, having successfully barred the doors against the muslim attacker.
There is a grim irony in that, having regard to the policing and political response to the events of the last couple of years.
May the two murdered Jews Rest in Peace.
Back in 1987 Bigmouth was singing:
This is a surprisningly well written piece from the Mail.
Natalie,
They have already heard themselves and they love it. Whilst they are winning and they shall never stop. Civilization has simply lost the narrative. And the narrative is much more important than JDAMs. Netanyahu (and many others) have failed to grasp this and this has been the case for decades. Anyway, you’re expecting critical introspection from the likes of “Queers For Palestine”? I admire your faith in the potential of humanity but I simply can’t share it. Not since 9/11 and every “justified” atrocity since which have just hardened my heart and increased my despair at the submission we show against true evil. I fear I’m becoming as bad as them. I mean I don’t think I’d shed a tear if the Israeli’s really were carrying out a genocide. I hate that but it’s how I feel. It goes against my great source of morality – Tolkien. And I really hate that.
My primary source of morality are the Sagas of Icelanders.
Sun Tzu, Machiavelli, and biographies of Chinggis Khan also play a role.
You have been warned.
Snorri,
That’s strategy, not ethics. I’d certainly go with Sun Tzu and Machiavelli but I learned a lot of my strategic thinking from Sid Meier and Bryan Reynolds. And, no, Snorri, you shall not be warned 😲!!!
PS. Also, of course, a lot of what not to do from villians in Bond movies. And maybe The Empire. I mean, yeah, right, let’s build another Death Star because the last one worked grand…
Sun Tzu and Machiavelli: mostly strategy, i agree; but i think that there are no sharp boundaries.
WRT the Sagas, and Mongol history: there are no moral exemplars, everybody is flawed, more or less.
(Perhaps the same could be said of Tolkien.)
You have to think for yourself when you read them.
I’ll have to check them out.
Snorri, I’m in Iceland right now, on a short trip with my wife to see the sights. I’m interested in Norse mythology and history.
I like to think the Vikings had a straightforward approach to certain issues.
Snorri,
You have to play them…
Tolkien’s character’s do sometimes tend to have quite serious ethical issues. “The Lord of the Rings” and even “The Hobbit” pose moral issues but “The Silmarillion”… In particular, “Narn i Hîn Húrin” makes “Game of Thrones” look light-hearted. I mean it starts with a battle called, “Nírnaeth Arnoediad” (Tears Unnumbered) and then things go downhill from there…
And that’s The Guardian. Emphasis, mine.
He was called, “Jihad” FFS. I have no more words. There are none.
Johnathan: I wish you both a nice trip. It must be getting cold over there by now, but i suppose that you are covered up.
I have seen much — well, some — of the Western half, from the Westman Islands to Thingvellir and so on, up to the West Fjords and Bjarg in Miðfjörður (see Grettis Saga); and a bit farther.
I look forward to seeing the Eastern half, although it is of lesser Saga interest.
— NickM: I have not read the Silmarillion. If it is more Machiavellian than Game of Thrones, then i am very interested.
Johnathan Pearce – I hope you and your wife have a nice time in Iceland. Northern Lights and all.
And there is a Norwegian novelist on Youtube (Bjorn something or other) who tries to apply Norse principles to modern times – although he does not go raiding (does not go aViking). There is also the “Sanity in Sweden” YouTube channel.
Snorri – the Silmarillion is really a group of writings written very much as old chroniclers wrote. Perhaps the chapter that would interest you most is the character (story of) Turin.
Not an evil man, although responsible for many evil things.
Cursed by the power of evil (by Morgoth himself – so that Turin’s father Hurin may be tormented by the suffering of his wife and children) – but, perhaps, his real undoing is his own arrogance.
Snorri,
I don’t think “Machiavellian” is quite the right term but it is very dark. Melkor/Morgoth is quite literally the Devil but the “good guys” frequently tainted as well and do some very “questionable” things. There are kin-slayings and betrayals. You will, for example, discover a very different side to Galadriel. It is not an easy read, stylitically.
’ I think most of them are sincere.’
Well, you continue to believe that if you want.
Given we now know that two of the targets of this lunatic were actually shot by those ‘highly trained professionals‘ in the GMP, one of them fatally, do you still believe that?
Or do you think it likely having civilians blazing away merely adds to the threat?
The Sil (to an extent) – this is fleshed out more in the gargantuan “History of Middle Earth” series edited by Christopher Tolkien – JRRT’s son and literary executor* – has an interesting take on the theological “Problem of Evil”. So, Melkor/Morgoth takes a perfect World (this really isn’t much of a spoiler) and introduces evil through his pride and desire for power. One of the evils is extreme cold but withot that we wouldn’t have the beauty of icicles and snowflakes as a trivial example. Which reminds me – enjoy yourself JP! In the loand where renewables work but you need a credit check to buy a beer!
There is something else. CJRT who compiled The Sil is on record as stating that it’s not perfect and he had to make a lot of decisions. JRRT had been working ans re-working The Sil for about 50 years. So it is, from the point of view, of almost all the characters in LoTR an actual mythology like we have Viking sagas or the Iliad or the Kaleval of the The Mahabharata. This more than anything is what I love about Middle Earth. It is a mythology (“A history of this World at a different level of imagination” – JRRT) with it’s own mythology and it’s own, disputed, sometimes inscutable, history just like a real place. The only other fantasy writer I know who has done anything like it (and it is nowhere near as deep) is Ursula K LeGuin.
Sorry to ramble on but once I get started on JRRT… Just one thing. A good read before starting on The Sil is here.
*And also first critic. “The Hobbit” started out as bedtime sorries his Dad told him. Little CJRT urged his Dad to write it down to keep the tale consistent from one bedtime to the next.
Thank you for the information on The Silmarillion. Intriguing.
Going back to the main post, i felt Schadenfreude at the fact that Lammy was heckled by Jews at the Manchester Synagogue, on the same day (if i am not mistaken) when Starmer’s residence was mobbed by Jihadists.
Snorri – yes indeed.
By the way Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy is more open than the Prime Minister – more open about his despicable beliefs, for example his statement (not so long ago) that “us” deserve “Reparations” from the evil British for slavery. This was interesting as Mr Lammy was born in Britain, so is he not British? Should Mr Lammy not be paying “Reparations” money to slaves, if he can find any, if he honestly believes that British people, such as himself, are enslaving other people. Why would he think that he is owned money?
NickM – as you know Tolkien wrote different things about Galadriel, but it was a constant in his writings – that the young (well less experienced) Galadriel wanted to rule a realm of her own.
Galadriel swore no evil oath, and Galadriel never murdered her kin or anyone else – but the desire for power was there within her, and, to Tolkien, the desire for power is not a good thing.
As Snorri will know from the appendixes of the Lord of the Rings, Galadriel was a good ruler and was never fooled by the “Giver of Gifts” (sensing there was something crooked in his spirit) – but the desire to rule is, again, not a good thing to Tolkien.
Galadriel would have to be put to the test – to overcome that desire.
To give people an idea of how different the Silmarillion is, in style and structure – method, from the Lord of the Rings – the story of the Lord of the Rings is told at the end of the Silmarillion, told in the manner of the rest of the work, and, so, only takes up a few pages.
Speaking of Galadriel the cringeworthy girl-boss reimagining of her in Rings of Power makes me grateful that Amazon appear to only have the TV rights to desecrate the Akallabeth (The fall of Numenor) and that the First Age events depicted in the rest of the Silmarillion can remain where they belong – on the written page and in my imagination.
Just on the off chance, and it’s a pretty remote possibility, has anyone on here read Unsong, written by Scott Alexander of Star Slate Codex? If so they will understand my question while we’re discussing the Silmarillion and particularly the not entirely straightforward embodiment of evil by Melkor.
No John I have not read Unsong.
The “Rings of Power” is indeed awful.
Amazon has the same problem that Netflix and Disney do – years of hiring from the leftist dominated universities, and internal promotion controlled by lefists.
Jeff Bezos could, in theory, save Amazon Prime streaming service – but he would have to fire most of the people presently there and rebuild from the ground up.
A person shot by accident by police trying to neutralise a terrorist was not murdered.
Paul,
The character I was referring to is Thamiel. An apparently fallen angel who is the literal ruler of hell.
In the denouement a tearful and defeated Thamiel, on being brought before the Messiah, asks “did I do well” revealing that his whole raison d’etre was to generate unspeakable evil as a necessary part of God’s overall plan.
There’s obviously a great deal more to it than that but I found the concept thought-provoking. Incidentally UNSONG stands for the United Nations SubCommittee on Names of God, an autocratic body which controls and exploits the physical manifestations of power generated by uttering one of God’s myriad names (in Kabbalistic belief). It’s that sort of book, told with relish and excruciating puns.
Actually, the UK still retains a vestige of the old Felony-Murder doctrine, enough such that the current circumstances would likely still qualify as murder by the terrorist if it can be shown that he intended to cause someone great bodily harm.
bobby b,
Won’t fly. Now if it had been a mosque the cop would have been nicked by now. sorry if that sounds Chauvin-istic of me.
John – I think we can agree that if someone thinks that God is telling them to do evil, it is not really God who is speaking to them.
Interesting that you should say that as the heroine spends the entire book struggling with the concept of Theodicy.
Eventually she comes face to face with God and is able to ask why he allows evil in the world. I won’t spoil it by telling you his answer.
BTW I went back to this from NickM:
The Sagas of Icelanders are more oral history written down later, than mythology; kind of like Herodotos or Livius or the history of the American West (eg the OK Corrall); or the Secret History of the Mongols. But that is only a quibble, leading to my main point below.
Similarly, one could say that the Sagas of Icelanders constitute an almost-mythology with its own mythology: the prose and poetic Eddas.
“Nine Worlds I remember” – Snorri Sturluson
(a) My first thought when I heard the IAU was demoting Pluto.
(b) The Edda were an inspiration to my two favourite authors: JRRT and Borges.
John – as you know, the traditional answer as to why God allows evil in the world is Free Will (moral agency).
As Aristotle and other thinkers (long before Christianity) pointed out – if an action is not freely chosen (if the person was not free to choose to do otherwise than they did) then it can not be a morally good or morally bad action (although it may be pleasant or unpleasant in its results) – the person can only be praised or blamed if they were able to do other than they did (if they were free to choose to do otherwise).
Christians and Muslims may (perhaps) be divided upon this matter (that is a complicated question), but Judaism is clear on this particular point – and it was one reason why the philosopher Spinoza was formally declared to be not-a-Jew (a rare judgement) – NOT a bad-Jew, not a Jew at all – indeed Jews were instructed to not associate with him in any way, to not speak to him, not respond if he spoke to them, and to walk away if he approached them.
Eating pork, or whatever, may be forgiven – but Determinism (or “Compatibilism”) NO.
The Determinist (or “Compatibilist”) has denied their own moral personhood – their moral agency (their ability to choose to do good over the desire to do evil – their capacity for their moral reason to, with moral effort, overcome the passions). They have declared themselves a non-person – and are to be treated as such.
Watch out, Paul, because that is indeed the answer that Augustinus gives in De Libero Arbitrio, at the end of Book 1.
Except that, in so doing, he contradicts what he wrote a few pages earlier.
More importantly, in later writings he declared that the freedom to choose between Good and Evil is an inferior kind of freedom. The supreme freedom is the freedom of God, the angels, and the saints in Paradise: the freedom of (necessarily, deterministically) doing Good.
(Occam denied this freedom to God, attributing to him what you call “free will” (although you do not believe in the will).
Being logically consistent, Occam was stuck with Divine Command theory.)
Just yesterday i reread a passage in Descartes’ IV Meditation, which basically agrees with Augustinus.
PS:
Watch out again, Paul, because both the Stoics and Spinoza believed in ABSOLUTE determinism — which i do NOT.
(I am told that their metaphysics were substantially identical.)
The difference between the Stoics and Spinoza was that the latter was an IN-compatibilist like you, while the former were compatibilists (like me).
Thus, the Stoics could accept both determinism and “free will”, while Spinoza could not.
I knew he was excommunicated, but didn’t know it was that bad.
PPS:
Watch out again, because Aristotle believed that a man is truly free only if he DETERMINISTICALLY follows his rational soul, rather than his “animal” soul. A man who can choose to obey the “passions” (the animal soul) is not entirely free.
Aristotle used this as a justification for slavery and the subjection of women, see Book 1 of Politics; but it was not simply a justification.
In fact, in Greek philosophy, incompatibilism only appears in Epicurus, and is only developed by Alexander of Aphrodysias to pretty much what it is today.
PS to my 1st PS (with apologies for going on about this).
I wrote:
I should have written: the Stoics could accept both determinism and freedom of choice, while Spinoza could not.
— That led me to think a bit more clearly about the difference between IN-compatibilists and yours truly.
I think of freedom of choice as the freedom to choose what one thinks best.
Incompatibilists think of “free will” as the freedom to choose between what one thinks best, and what one does not think best.
What incompatibilists call “free will”, i call insanity.
… And i admit that i suffer from this insanity myself: for instance, i might think it best not to drink another beer, but then i drink it anyway. I do not think myself more free for that: in fact, i think myself LESS free.
Snorri – I respectfully disagree.
The struggle against the passions is something that every human being faces – every day, if only in small ways.
What “one thinks best” in terms of pleasure, and what “one thinks best” in terms of the morally right thing to do – are very different things. For example, stealing, torturing, raping and murdering are all pleasurable activities – but they are also morally wrong.
A human being has the ability, with moral effort, to at least sometimes defeat the passions – to hold back the evil within ourselves.
“This is wrong so I ought not to do it” (an “ought from an is”) is the essence of morality (ethics), and reason must NOT be “the slave of the passions” – otherwise reason is just instrumental (it is not moral reason).
It is “reason” in the sense of “how do I get away with doing X,Y,Z”.
There is a story of an old professor finding some students of his celebrating the coming to power of the National Socialists in 1933.
“Why are you celebrating?” he asked – “because we will now be free” they replied.
“But” (the baffled professor went on) “surely the programme of the National Socialist movement is to take freedom from you – for the Leadership to make the decisions for you?”
“Exactly!” replied the students – “now we will be free-not-to-be-free”.
The terrible burden of moral responsibility had been taken from their shoulders – now they could commit any deed they were ordered to commit (and enjoy doing it) without moral guilt – and least so they claimed, in their bad faith.
If one wants to see how humans behave when freed from the burden of moral guilt – freed to follow their passions, with their reason reduced to just an instrumental role (“how do I do this?” rather than “should I do this – is it the morally right thing to do?”) then observe October 7th 2023 – these events (men, woman and children, babies, being tortured, mutilated, sexually abused, killed) were NOT the work of a few people, a few “lunatics” – such deeds were the work of a general population (wildly supported and celebrated by the millions of people in Gaza – and their supporters around the world), and such deeds have been common in human history over all the thousands of years that humans have existed.
A platform of wood has been found in Africa (preserved by a freak of nature) that is half a MILLION years old – yet there are joints in the platform, it was not just thrown together, so the near humans of the time had intelligence – and I am sure that terrible deeds (and also noble deeds – desperate resistance against the evil in one’s self – and going to the aid of others even though one knows it will lead to one’s own death) were going on even that far back – half a MILLION years ago.
Islam did NOT invent any of this.
Muslims are NOT demons or space monsters – they are human beings, they have just been taught that morality is a matter of obeying an external set of commands (from Muhammed and so on), and that the internal voice of conscience should be ignored IF it contradicts those commands. They have also been told, quite correctly (quite truthfully) that inflicting pain and humiliation on others will give them great pleasure – which it does (and NOT just inflicting pain and suffering on Jews, for example the rape gangs in British towns and cities), that is NOT just true of Muslims (again they are just human beings), it is true of humans in general – the passions exist generally, not just in one subset of mankind.
The video evidence of such activities (made by the people who did it – for they were proud of what they did) should have been made generally available by the Israeli government – but they, the Israeli government, were too weak, too scared of being accused of “Islamophobia” – which is stupid as it is NOT about Muslims, it is about all humans who are taught to crush the voice of conscience (of moral reason) within themselves.
The other mistake was not to destroy this evil quickly – Hamas and the other groups should have been destroyed in a week, all this messing about (and I am sorry, but “messing about” is the correct way to describe it – even though many Israeli soldiers have died trying to keep DOWN Muslim civilian casualties – and I do not make light of their sacrifice) has dragged the war out for two years (ironically that has INCREASED Muslim civilian deaths – a ruthless campaign of a week of so would have meant FEWER Muslim civilian deaths than have occurred over the last two years – but Generals such as Patton or Sherman were NOT in command of the Israeli forces) – and given the forces of evil around the world (again NOT just Muslims) lots of time for their agitprop (agitation propaganda) lies.
Including the biggest lie of all – repeated endlessly by the international media (and by “Wikipedia”) the “genocide” – yes the people who wish to commit genocide against the Jews invert the truth (“project” their own desires on their intended victims) and pretend that the Jews are committing genocide against them.
I remember watching on-line (Rumble) “RT” (I watch so you do not have to) – showing Israeli warships firing warning shots into a port area in Gaza – “ha-ha, you missed” were the comments – I remember it very clearly although it was almost two years ago.
The comment people did not think in terms of warning shots – they would never do such a thing themselves. Why would they? Whether Islamists or leftists (RT has both in its comments on Rumble) they would normally exterminate their enemies – unless they kept them alive as slaves for the pleasure of tormenting them.
The idea of “warning shots”, of trying to get people to move without hurting them, was outside their mental universe. At least so they would claim – in their bad faith.
“Aragorn never got more from Gollum than the marks of his teeth – Frodo almost helped Gollum to repentance, to becoming Smeagol again”.
Yes – but, Gollum did not repent. And Gollum, among other things, had raided cradles – raided cradles for babies to eat.
And I am not going to blindly accept that the evil may do something that has a good result – even though they, the evil, do not intend that result.
Yes,
The Israelis have handled this badly. They lost the nattative from the start by not collating all the 7/10 footage and releasing it as widely as possible.
– Dwight D. Eisenhower
I’m not sure that a week-long high intensity campaign would have worked though. Hamas are clearly very dug into Gaza both literally (the tunnels – about the size of the Moscow underground!), politically and in every other way. Gaza has for years survived essentially on international aid and Hamas controls the distribution of that.
Obviously the aid should never have happened so Gaza would have had to work it’s way iin the World which would leave less time for tunneling and rocketry. Perhaps, maybe, in time the inhabitants might begin to realise that defining your very essence by those you hate is a poor excuse for a life.
– Golda Meir
NickM.
The policy of gradualism has indeed been a failure.
And, although, yes, he was put under terrible pressure, the Prime Minister of Israel must take some of the blame.
Both his friends and his enemies see “Bibi” as strong and ruthless – he is NOT.
“Peace will come when the Arabs will love their children more than they hate us”.
That showed that Golda Meir did not understand Islam – to a sincere follower of Islam (and the penalty for being insincere, being a “hypocrite, is death), their children being killed by infidels is the best possible thing that could happen to their children – as it means that their children go straight to paradise and have eternal joy. So they DO love their children – which is why they use them as human shields. Whilst they, the adults, have to live – in order to kill, or enslave, more infidels.
I am reminded of the former head of Shin Bet (the security service in charge of gathering information on internal threats – including from Gaza) – the person who failed to see massive (simply vast) attack of October 7th coming.
Far from resigning (let alone killing himself – as he might be expected to do) in disgrace, after the attack – he went to court to try and prevent himself being sacked from his job, so the former head of Shin Bet is a PIG – but it is not that is important in this context.
What I was struck by was his statement that he had failed to “deter” an attack.
You can NOT “deter” an attack from people who believe they will go to Paradise if they are killed.
As the commander of the Islamic army besieging Alexandra (long ago) said – “you love life, we love death – so we will win” – and he was correct.
The fact that the former head of Shin Bet thought in terms of “deterring” an attack showed he did not know the first thing about Islam – did not understand “Islam 101” was it were.
I fear the rest of the Israeli establishment (and the international establishment) are equally ignorant.
Paul: there is much that is wrong, illogical, or confused in your comment yesterday at 5:08 pm; but i am not going to disentangle it, because i do not see what any of it has to do with what i wrote.
Thank you Snorri.
Those interested in ethics (free will – the ability, with moral effort, to choose to do what is morally right against our desires to do evil) might be interested in the work of Ralph Cudworth – which refutes the terrible errors of Thomas Hobbes. As well as Thomas Reid’s defense of the existence of the human person against David Hume’s attack on the existence of the human person (of the moral agent). In the 20th century the Oxford philosophers Harold Prichard and Sir William David Ross are also of interest – as well as the general thinkers J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis. All on what used to be called “the nature of man”.
All of these thinkers can, to some extent, be seen as defenders of what the Aristotelian tradition holds that people (persons) are – against the attacks upon the existence of the person (the free will moral agent) found in Thomas Hobbes, David Hume, Jeremy Bentham, and others.
Richard Price (the Welsh philosopher) is a hotly contested figure – and what side he was on I leave to people who are more learned in his work than I am.
Paul,
Hmm… As to the children as human shields. It is evil but it also efffective. I do not pretend to know what the bereaved mother’s are really thinking but their shroud-waving has gained enormous levels of sympathy for the Palestinian “cause” and along with that a huge quantity of antipathy towards Israel and Jews in general. And tha to describe the dismal t includes, from what I have seen, completely secular Jews with no connections whatsoever to Israel. If Netanyahu is “weak” then what word is left to describe the dismal words of Starmer?
Interesting that Paul writes this.
I have no idea of what Hume wrote about the "non-existence of the human person", but that might be due to my own ignorance.
What really intrigues me, and perhaps Paul can explain, is how he can reconcile Cudworth with Reid.
I have been wondering about this for years.
— Cudworth argued that "freewill" is INcompatible with both determinism and INdeterminism. A contradiction* but at least he made the earliest cogent argument against INdeterminism that i am aware of.
* Cudworth tried to resolve the contradiction, i dare not say with a wretched subterfuge, but with an obvious sleight of hand. (Locke used the same sleight of hand later on.)
Also, Cudworth did not accept that the will is a distinct mental faculty (which is why i put "freewill" in scare quotes).
— Reid, otoh, did believe in the distinction between the Will and the Understanding. From On the Active Powers of Man, Essay IV, chapter I:
[The “Liberty” that Reid is talking about, is defined a few paragraphs further:
]
So we already have a disagreement between Cudworth and Reid: the latter believes in the Will as a mental faculty, and the former does not.
— But there is a further disagreement.
Further down in the same Chapter, Reid writes:
Note, first of all, that Reid’s conception of liberty seems directly opposed to that of the ancients (Roman & Greek).
As i understand, most of the ancients thought that only people like Cato were truly free.
But in my view there is also a direct contradiction with Cudworth; because those words, in my view, clearly imply that a man is free ONLY if there is a non-zero probability that he chooses other than what is best. In other words, those words imply that a man is free only if his choice is somewhat random.
The key question is whether free will, the human person (the moral agent), the soul in the Aristotelian sense, exists.
Thomas Hobbes, David Hume, Jeremy Bentham, held that the human person (the “I” – free will, moral agency) does NOT exist (that humans are just machines, or just bundles of sensations, or that personhood, the “I”, is an “illusion” – or whatever). This is why “compatibilism” is an empty evasion.
The attackers of October 7th 2023 can only be morally blamed for their rapes, mutilations and murders, if (IF) they could have chosen NOT to do these things – if they could have freely chosen to do other than they did. Otherwise it would be like morally blaming a tidal wave for drowning people, or a volcano for burning people – the water and the fire had no moral choice (they are not persons – not free will moral agents) they can not be morally blamed – because they have no free will.
None of this is very complicated – and people who keep denying it are guilty of bad faith.
By the way – I do not think it is an accident that Dr Martin Luther’s position on this matter (described in his “Bondage of the Will”) is very similar to the mainstream Sunni Muslim position held by Hamas and other groups.
In short – that what they do is determined (yes predetermined – predetermined) by God.
Of course it is possible that they came to the same conclusion by coincidence – but some (SOME) of the Christian thinkers that Dr Luther drew upon do (perhaps) seem to have been influenced by the mainstream Sunni Muslim approach on this matter. Although, yes, Dr Luther also drew on Augustine – who was active centuries before Islam existed.
Winston Churchill described this determinist (yes – predetermined) approach of mainstream Sunni Islamic philosophy in rather offensive language.
I will not repeat that language – but I will say that modern philosophers who support these doctrines are as bad as modern historians who defend the Ottoman, and other Islamic, Empires, and modern economists who hold that ever more government spending is a good thing.
Certainly I could be mistaken about the Islamic connection, but it is clear that what Mr Hobbes, Mr Hume and Mr Bentham (and others) were doing was presenting a secular version of what, on this matter (the existence of the human person – free will) of what Dr Martin Luther had presented in religious terms.
Dr Luther had one free will being in the universe – God, and Mr Hobbes, Mr Hume and Mr Bentham (and others) had none at all. To them – everyone (presumably including THEMSELVES) is just a some-thing – there are no some-ones, every human looking thing is just an object – no subjects.
The question for Dr Luther (and for John Wycliffe before him and John Calvin, George Whitfield, Jonathan Edwards…… after him) is this – if who is saved and who goes to Hell was predetermined (was decided at the start of the universe) – why-are-you-preaching?
And contrary to James McCosh in the 19th century – this predestinationism does (not does not) imply determinism (in the sense of predetermined).
The only answer they can have is that their preaching was also predetermined – that it is all part of God’s plan, that they had no choice as to whether they preached or not.
To paraphrase Stephen Miller: that is a pretty dumb analogy.
A tidal wave cannot be blamed, because it is an event:
You cannot blame hijackings for 9/11.
A volcano is not an event, but blaming it gets you nowhere, because a volcano cannot be punished; hence it, and other volcanoes, cannot be deterred from erupting.
This should be (and probably is) obvious to anybody who has thought seriously about what constitutes a choice.
Only agents, ie entities making choices, can be deterred from making choices that you don’t like.
What matters, in this context – consigning moral praise and blame, is whether the attackers on October 7th 2023 had Free Will (i.e. were persons) or not – whether they could have chosen do other than they did.
If the attackers were persons (human BEINGS) – if they had Free Will, could have chosen to do other than they did, then they can be morally blamed for their actions. If they were not persons, did not have Free Will, they can no more be morally blamed than a tidal wave or a volcano – not “dumb” at all, just basic reasoning.
Either the attackers were persons, or they were not.
Every person, every day, faces, if only small ways, the choice between our passions – and what we know we ought to do. That is why moral conduct requires effort, it requires effort to follow moral reason (to follow “this is wrong – so I ought not to do it”) rather than the passions.
Hardly a new discovery – this has been written about for thousands of years (the Ancient Greeks wrote about it) – and has been known for as long as human beings (human persons) have existed.
However, I have neglected the positive side of this – morality is not just a matter of “this is wrong – so I ought not to do it”, there is also “this is morally right – so I ought to do it, I must overcome my sloth and fear”.
The development of active virtues (actually doing things – being a good person) that Aristotle and others wrote about.
I apologize for this error (this blunder – very serious oversight) – this neglect of the positive side of morality.
Ethical conduct is NOT just resisting urges, or external pressures, to do terrible things – it is also a positive thing, doing actively good things.
For example, if an attacker on October 7th 2023 had said “no I will not do these things” (rape, mutilation, murder) that would have been good – BUT if they had said (and acted upon) “and I will prevent others doing these things – even if I lose my life in the attempt to stop them” this would have been better.