Israel/Palestine Murders 18 November

[Clockwork]

It is unfortunate, you're right penty. Actually it's even more irrational than that guys, because of the *growing* (and this is where I have a problem, they seem to be trending among the muslim population) number of people from (mostly) a single sect of a single religion I am going to hate them all. Until they prove nice. Don't assume I'm going to be mean to their face, or that I'm in any way violent towards them (or anyone else), I'm just going to adopt a more 'hate until proven cool' than 'I'm just cool with everybody, live and let live' attitude.

[Pentagathus]

Don't assume I'm in any way violent towards them

And yet you've been using your views regarding muslims (which you admit to being "unfortunate" at least) to condone Israel's use of force against civilian areas.
Honestly if you actually lived in Israel or otherwise faced any real threat from Islamic extremists I could understand your stance and would agree that its "unfortunate". But you don't face any real threat from extremists, it doesn't matter whether you can easily distinguish between violent extremists and otherwise because you're incredibly unlikely to be a victim of them. Unless you've actually got real reason to personally fear Islamic extremists (and no, news reports of a few isolated incidents or conflicts half a world away don't qualify) then I'd suggest you have a think on what the real root cause of your attitude is.

[Jubal]

Thread title edited to reflect topic.

[comrade_general]

That works, I couldn't think of a good one.

[Othko97]

I couldn't find how.

[Clockwork]

I'm not *personally* violent towards them (as opposed to regular, non-military Muslims who have been violent in this and other cases). I disagree, news reports from halfway around the world count as far as I'm concerned, I'm sympathetic to my fellow man. I'm not thinking of myself at all, I don't expect to be attacked even by a string of bad luck and circumstance. I am thinking of victims of attacks here and abroad. Families of people who have suffered atrocities by Muslim hands. Are you then not wary of ISIL etc? Do these guys not bother you just because they're far away? I doubt that. I think I get what you mean, I can take the chance on all Muslims I meet here because 99.9% of them are going to be awesome. However my argument is one of semi-logical hops, once enough bad role models have made a name for themselves under one demographic, surely it stands to reason there are more and will be more, given the influence these role models hold (Jihadi John, Abu Hamza etc). Perhaps more than you think, hell, perhaps even more than *I* think.

[Pentagathus]

my argument is one of semi-logical hops, once enough bad role models have made a name for themselves under one demographic, surely it stands to reason there are more and will be more, given the influence these role models hold (Jihadi John, Abu Hamza etc). Perhaps more than you think, hell, perhaps even more than *I* think.

No, sorry but there is very little logic, if any in the argument you have now presented. You claim that you hate all muslims until they individually prove themselves to unworthy of you hatred, despite the fact you admit that the majority of muslims are undeserving of hatred, purely due to the fact that a small proportion of muslims are violent extremists. If you are going to apply this view logically then you would have to apply it to each major division of humanity which would then result in you hating every human being until they individually prove themselves unworthy of your hatred. Which would be a pretty horrendous way to live I feel.
I don't get your point in the last part there at all. Are you trying to argue that a large proportion of Muslims are extremists? Because its pretty clear the majority are not violent, if they were then the world would be a much more violent place.
I am concerned about IS and other such groups, however since I don't need to be personally concerned about Islamic extremism I can very easily be reasonably objective with this concern. As such I don't have any excuse to be prejudiced towards Muslims based on the actions of extremists.


Also going back to one of your previous points that Muslims are more commonly involved in conflicts than any other religion, well no armadillo, Islam is the largest and most diverse religion in the world. It is to be expected that its followers are more likely to be involved in conflict by this alone, not to mention the fact that Islam is the predominant religion within poorer countries (where you tend to expect less social development and a greater chance of conflict) whereas for example judaism is much smaller and much less diverse. Israel is the world's only jewish state which makes it much more difficult for judaism to come into serious conflict with christianity considering it has no majority christian countries as neighbours. If (very much hypothetically) judaism managed to replace islam as the dominant religion within the middle east (or northern africa especially) then I would expect to see much more conflict between jews and christians as there are quite a lot of christians with extremist views in these areas too.

[Clockwork]

The logic is basic and fear driven: where there is one there will be more. I've already said it's irrational by the way. I am however rationally arguing that there are more 'role models' now than we've seen before which *could* (although I believe will more than likely) lead to further extremism. That part isn't an illogical or an extreme view, surely?

Also going back to one of your previous points that Muslims are more commonly involved in conflicts than any other religion, well no armadillo, Islam is the largest and most diverse religion in the world.

So because there are more of them, it's just normal for there to be more violence, what about in places where they aren't a majority, say, the UK? There are many more non-Muslims here than Muslims, however most of the terrorist type violence is perpetrated by them. Gang wars/bar fights aren't relevant, they're against each other: the 7th July 2005 attack, the killing of Lee Rigby and so forth were against the country. Just sayin' it really is more likely that one of them is to blame than any other demographic.

Would Jews and Christians fight if given the chance? I doubt it. Israel is a developed, moderately free country (Muslim countries aren't, obviously), any country that was Jewish would be getting support and infrastructure from them. Jews would have no reason to fight Christians unless they provoked them, at which point I'd be all hating on Christians.

[Pentagathus]

The logic is basic and fear driven: where there is one there will be more. I've already said it's irrational by the way. I am however rationally arguing that there are more 'role models' now than we've seen before which *could* (although I believe will more than likely) lead to further extremism. That part isn't an illogical or an extreme view, surely?

"Where there is one there will be more" is entirely illogical, it simply doesn't follow and it would again lead to you hating every large division of humanity if it were. But I get your point, it just seems a very weak one. There may appear to be a growing number of "role models" (whoever these are) to you but its a pretty unreliable view if you're just basing it on the emergence of such figures within the mainstream media. Unless you fear that leading to further extremism means leading to a majority population of extremists then its still illogical to hate the majority of muslims based on the actions of the minority, regardless of whether that minority is increasing.
I just can't understand how you'd come to these views unless you actually want to hate a faceless group of people or are looking for someone to blame.

So because there are more of them, it's just normal for there to be more violence, what about in places where they aren't a majority, say, the UK? There are many more non-Muslims here than Muslims, however most of the terrorist type violence is perpetrated by them. Gang wars/bar fights aren't relevant, they're against each other: the 7th July 2005 attack, the killing of Lee Rigby and so forth were against the country. Just sayin' it really is more likely that one of them is to blame than any other demographic.

Would Jews and Christians fight if given the chance? I doubt it. Israel is a developed, moderately free country (Muslim countries aren't, obviously), any country that was Jewish would be getting support and infrastructure from them. Jews would have no reason to fight Christians unless they provoked them, at which point I'd be all hating on Christians.

I'm dealing with this separately since its not particularly relevant to my main point.  I was trying to dispute the idea that Islam is an inherently violent religion, which to be fair you haven't actually claimed anyway. My point was that since Islam is most widely spread its going to have an increased likelihood of being involved in cultural clashes, which then can become religious clashes or at least lead to the perception of Islam being involved in violence. As to Christians fighting Jews I meant in the very much hypothetical situation where large jewish populations would come into contact with extremist christianity such as you see in parts of africa. Furthermore, extremist christianity is only likely to receive financial backing from western societies where its much more risky if they fund militant groups, thus making such aid much less likely. Islamic extremists on the other hand tend to be funded by ridiculously rich bastards in Saudi because they know they can get away with it.

[Tom]

Wow, there's a lot of hate in this thread. I personally can't see how you could exhibit hate towards a whole religion and group of people wherein the majority are completely innocent. If I told you I was a muslim would you hate me? I just think that this sort of hate is what drives religious conflicts, both sides hate each other because it's so easy to group people in to 'muslims' or 'jews' that you don't have to deal with the fact that its often just a few nutters on each side portugaling everything up for everyone else whilst everyone else is just trying to get by.

[Clockwork]

As a weird dichotomy, I don't believe Islam or any other religion is violent by nature. I do believe some peoples are more violent but that isn't by nature, more by necessity. Israel arguably has the best and most violent special forces in the world but is Judaism responsible for this? I'd say necessity, or at least perceived necessity on their part if you don't believe it's actually necessary. Practices that go on in Islam such as ritual combat I just think are differences between cultures and are not violent in the sense that they mean to cause conflict but are thought of as a resolution. Basically, we've left dueling behind and they haven't. I don't know which of us was right, I for one would like to see Cameron and Milliband draw pistols at dawn.

*Also, innocence is hugely up for debate. Are the people of these Muslim countries actually doing anything to permanently remove threats like ISIL? Have the Muslim community here called for Abu Hamza to be deported/jailed, are our young Muslims here who know of extremists doing anything to stop them? Not a lot of them. Am I innocent? Using hate speech towards a group of people I don't even know. I don't think I am. I'll freely admit to being a bastard but I am also doing/saying what I think is right and for the benefit of the people I care about. Path to damnation paved with good intentions etc. If you think that people are innocent until they actually do something horrific, I'd argue that's too late to be worrying about innocence.

*This is said with the assumption that you're not using legal innocence of crimes as opposed to whether someone is 'good' or not. If the former is the case then sure, the vast majority are innocent.

As to how I come to my views Penty: I'm irrationally wary of Muslims. Fear turns to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffe...wait that was star wars... But you get the point. But I also do believe that there are more extremists year on year. Which is why I don't just dismiss this as paranoia.

We're going to just agree to disagree on use of force by Israel though I think. I call it justified because of all I've said before, you don't. Which is fine, I can't say there is a definitive right/wrong answer. I'm open to being wrong but I don't think I am. If Israel gets destroyed I'll get to say I told you so but I'll find no solace in that. If Hamas dies out because of casualties sustained from Israel, you'll be right and I'll feel bad that I supported them. There are no 'winners' in this, I'm just hoping my far flung brethren survive and find a time of peace.

@Tom, No I wouldn't hate you if I found out you were Muslim, you seem decent so even if you were, I'd be cool with you. Also it's not particularly a religious war. The perpetrators just happen to be Muslim, if they were Chinese instead, I'd be all hating the Chinese. I care more because they're trying to take out the only Jewish country but they're attacking all over the world, to me this looks like these groups actually want a completely Islamic world and unless they're put down hard, won't stop trying.

As another aside I also respect my enemy. They are the people that most of all are fighting blood and thunder for their beliefs, how could one not respect that? Obviously I think they're misguided and evil but they'd say that of me. (This time just talking about the fighters and extremists, not civvies).

An interesting question would be: would I be okay with Britain fighting all Muslims everywhere on principle? Regrettably I can't find an answer yet. If I was okay with that, I can see that would be really, really bad. Personal views are obviously different from political views, it's not hard to see that that would be terrible for the country.

[Pentagathus]

As to how I come to my views Penty: I'm irrationally wary of Muslims. Fear turns to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffe...wait that was star wars... But you get the point. But I also do believe that there are more extremists year on year. Which is why I don't just dismiss this as paranoia.

We're going to just agree to disagree on use of force by Israel though I think. I call it justified because of all I've said before, you don't. Which is fine, I can't say there is a definitive right/wrong answer. I'm open to being wrong but I don't think I am. If Israel gets destroyed I'll get to say I told you so but I'll find no solace in that. If Hamas dies out because of casualties sustained from Israel, you'll be right and I'll feel bad that I supported them. There are no 'winners' in this, I'm just hoping my far flung brethren survive and find a time of peace.

Yeah I expect we will, tbh its not something I'd usually debate anyway since its a very complex topic of which I'm largely ignorant. I'd like to point out though that I do not support Hamas at all, if Israel wiped them out I'd be pleased with that result, my problem is that Israel's recent attacks against them often cause very high civilian casualties which is bad for the obvious reasons but also just increases hatred against Israel and support for Hamas.

CBA to quote properly but "Are the people of these Muslim countries actually doing anything to permanently remove threats like ISIL?" well yeah they are, have you not seen news of Sunni tribesmen being massacred for fighting against IS? Not seen the news of predominantly Sunni muslim Kurds fighting against IS? The Iraqi government is largely relying on Shia militia in their own battles, but there's obviously a strong element of sectarian hatred involved in that.

Edit:
Also could you give some examples of ritual combat being practised within Islam? Because I have literally never heard of that.

[Clockwork]

The Kurds want to create Kurdistan like they have been for pretty much forever. The Shi'a Muslims in Turkey, Iraq, Syria and Iran are against this because it'll encroach on their lands. The Kurds are generally moderate which is why they're getting support from USA and very begrudgingly under pressure from Europe and USA, the Turks as well. Basically they're being used as a buffer. They're fighting ISIL who obviously want a mega-state of Islam and a separate Kurdistan is not part of their plans, so Kurds get massacred. Are they better than ISIL, well yeah but I wouldn't count on them staying that way if they get their own country, although I'd love to be proven wrong there.

It's fair enough what you're saying but as I alluded to before, it's near impossible to tell who is a civilian and who is Hamas militant. Bombing schools is not cool obviously and I don't think that Israeli intel actually had any reason to believe that they were Hamas bases, that seems far-fetched at best. However....War is war, in Israels position I'd also be reluctant to leave any of them alive because of the nature of the fighters. They're guerrilla, they hide among the populous and if they aren't all defeated, there's a good chance that they'll be back.

You've heard about the 'honor killings' that go on? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honor_killing_of_Samaira_Nazir. Unless I've misunderstood, these had a slightly more reputable tradition as ways to sort out serious disagreements, and are still used both as a way to kill your family members that annoy you and to take revenge on the neighbour that never returned your camel. This is the other half https://rhizomatick.wordpress.com/tag/muslim-fundamentalism/ although I can't find a link between the two after looking for it, so I may have misunderstood the links but both things do still exist and are practiced.

I was listening to a radio programme on it possibly four/five months ago on R4 with guest speaker from Iraq iirc. In the Bible, Deuteronomy has passages on honor killing as well but as far as I'm aware it's not still practiced by Jews/Christians to any real extent. I don't have any particular view on it from the perspective of a Muslim in an area where this is expected, obviously as a westerner I find it barbaric but blaming the people for it I think isn't quite sufficient because it's just the norm, I think it's the fault of the society and culture they live in as well as the individual perpetrators (they don't get off free, they still have a semblance of choice).

This is a thing I think I'm pretty well read on, I have copies of the Quran, The Torah separate (first third of Jewish Bible, also called the books of Moses), The Jewish Bible complete, and the Christian one.

EDIT: Also an edit to my last post, I was tired when I wrote it. I said 'if they wipe out hamas' I meant if they wipe out the people of Gaza.

[Pentagathus]

They're fighting ISIL who obviously want a mega-state of Islam and a separate Kurdistan is not part of their plans, so Kurds get massacred. Are they better than ISIL, well yeah but I wouldn't count on them staying that way if they get their own country, although I'd love to be proven wrong there.

What have you based this on? Purely the fact that they're largely Islamic? You've already said that Kurds are generally moderate so why do you think this would change if a Kurdistan achieved full independence?
Also I expect the Kurds (at least those within Iraq) could have furthered their goal of gaining full independence much more easily by pursuing either an official or unofficial policy of largely ignoring IS. Obviously I can't speak for IS but although they're batarmadillo crazy to me I'd expect them to ignore the Kurds in this situation and concentrate on fighting Shia muslims. They have already stated that Shia muslims are their highest priority at the moment.

Are you denying that groups of Muslims (even those of the same sect as IS) are currently fighting against IS because they reject the ideology of IS? Sunni tribesmen have been risking their own lives and their families' security by battling IS in support of a government they generally don't trust despite the (well earned) brutal and savage reputation of their enemy. And yet you seem to think they are no better than IS.

As to honour killings, I wasn't asking about that. I was asking (mainly out of curiosity) about ritual combat, which you haven't given any examples of. The link you posted is an argument presenting someones personal view on the Israeli-Hamas conflicts in which this conflict is described as a form of symbolic duelling. Thats not showing any evidence that ritual combat is part of any Islamic culture.

EDIT: Also an edit to my last post, I was tired when I wrote it. I said 'if they wipe out hamas' I meant if they wipe out the people of Gaza.

Makes much more sense.

[Clockwork]

I've based it on pure speculation. Is there anything else to make a guess either way on? Not especially. People/countries are usually moderate before slipping into un-moderateness. No, they've been trying to get a Kurdistan through the 'proper channels' forever. The Iraqi government has no interest of giving them anything. They're probably going to (rightfully, by the way) ask Europe for some land from those countries mentioned to make their own country. I think it'll go up for debate and be a major global decision in the next 10 years. Again, pure speculation.

No, not denying that. Anyone fighting ISIL is by default better than ISIL. I can't say they will be in 20/30/40 years time though. Which doesn't really mean anything to be honest as nobody will be the same in that time, however Islamic nations have the predisposition of being especially hostile.

Yeah I really should have read it before, was the first thing that came up and seemed ok at a brief glance. I can only find similar things actually. I'm starting to think I'm wrong about what I heard. I don't know though, I distinctly remember hearing it.