Israel at War with Hamas October 7, 2023

[Diogenes]

There is no question this was a horrific attack by Hamas on Israel that also endangers Palestinians.
To what extent are attacks like this inevitable, considering the history of Israel?

Isn't this just another example of how religious conflict breeds violence?
or
Is it inevitable that strongly held beliefs will always ignite the passions of some?

Perhaps the difference with religions that claim authority from God is that they inspire absolute beliefs, an absolute conviction they are 'right' and therefore anything is justifiable... including following God's orders to kill your own son.

Palestinian land stolen in 1948, more in 1967, then more every day in the West Bank makes acts of terrorism inevitable. Then Netanyahu put a right wing criminal in charge of the 'Ministry of Justice,' and... BIG SURPRISE! ... another war.
"If I go the to write indictment number one, it would go to Israel's Justice Minister YARIV LEVIN. He is the man who drove this insane, corrupt, dishonest effort to basically take over the power of the Supreme Court. With Netanyahu's help, he fractured Israel. He fractured Israeli society. He fractured the Israeli ministry, the military. He fractured the Israeli air force...."
__ Tom Friedman

https://www.rawstory.com/tom-friedman-i ... A-TIAtHv6Y

[Donray]

Following from http://www.israeladvocacy.net/knowledge ... nian-land/
Please read whole article.

Is it true that Israel stole Palestinian land?
Accusation: Israel stole Palestinian land to build a Jewish State
[the Muslim Brotherhood will] continue to view the Jews and Zionists as their first and foremost enemies … Jihad means making sacrifices in order to restore what has been stolen [Palestine].

– Mohamed Badie, Supreme Leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, January 2010

Fact or fiction: Jews stole Palestinian land before 1948
From the beginning of World War 1 Arabs began claiming that Jews had stolen Arab land and displaced its inhabitants. In reality, 80% of the land in the region was considered “state land”, owned by the Ottoman Empire (subsequently the British), the next largest landholders were absentee landlords like the Lebanese Sursuck family who owned most of the Jezreel Valley. In contrast, 80 percent of Palestinian Arabs were impoverished peasants, semi-nomads and Bedouins… not wealthy landowners.1

The region was severely underpopulated which meant the Jews were able to avoid buying land in areas where Arabs might be displaced, which they did. They sought land that was largely uncultivated, swampy, sandy, and most importantly, without tenants, like much of the Jezreel Valley. In 1920, David Ben-Gurion expressed his concern about the Arab fellaheen (peasants), whom he viewed as “the most important asset of the native population” he said “under no circumstances must we touch land belonging to fellahs or worked by them”. He advocated helping liberate them from their oppressors. “Only if a fellah leaves his place of settlement,” Ben-Gurion added, “should we offer to buy his land, at an appropriate price.” 2

[boatsnguitars]

There is no question this was a horrific attack by Hamas on Israel that also endangers Palestinians.
To what extent are attacks like this inevitable, considering the history of Israel?

Isn't this just another example of how religious conflict breeds violence?
or
Is it inevitable that strongly held beliefs will always ignite the passions of some?

Perhaps the difference with religions that claim authority from God is that they inspire absolute beliefs, an absolute conviction they are 'right' and therefore anything is justifiable... including following God's orders to kill your own son.

Palestinian land stolen in 1948, more in 1967, then more every day in the West Bank makes acts of terrorism inevitable. Then Netanyahu put a right wing criminal in charge of the 'Ministry of Justice,' and... BIG SURPRISE! ... another war.
"If I go the to write indictment number one, it would go to Israel's Justice Minister YARIV LEVIN. He is the man who drove this insane, corrupt, dishonest effort to basically take over the power of the Supreme Court. With Netanyahu's help, he fractured Israel. He fractured Israeli society. He fractured the Israeli ministry, the military. He fractured the Israeli air force...."
__ Tom Friedman

https://www.rawstory.com/tom-friedman-i ... A-TIAtHv6Y

I just listened to Sam Harris's take on it and I generally agree that we need to be careful to make a false equivalency to what Israel did in the past, and what Hamas did. You can listen to it on his podcast if you want better detail, but his point was that Israel tries to limit the number of innocent casualties, whereas Hamas will use their own citizens as human shields, or even blowing up their own children when Israeli soldiers are giving them candy.

I think it really does speak to the impossible ability for Religion and Theism to provide any useful moral framework for humanity. Hamas can claim that this, like other times in the Bible and Koran, that God used people to commit atrocities for the greater good. It's impossible to think how this leads to a greater good. It will only continue violence.

But his major point, as I stated, seems to be a good starting point - though, I think Israel made many mistakes; generational mistakes in dealing with Palestine - but they tend not to target innocent civilians, or use their own people as shields. Israel has been known to prosecute their own soldiers for killing civilians. Hamas has never done that.

This is not to say that Muslims are all evil (though Islam is not a peaceful religion). There are cultures in the world - as the generations change, resources become sparse, State borders are drawn and re-drawn, old wounds are opened - that are obviously less moral (at least according to Humanist standards) than others. They seem to embrace wanton destruction, hatred, anger - and many of these cultures do it with a religious zealotry and violent glee that propels them to commit grander forms of destruction. Any number of countries have embraced genocide in the ill-conceived idea that they are protecting their culture, heritage, lives, etc.

Nazi Germany, Early America, Indonesia, Russia in Ukraine, etc. The list is quite extensive.

Clearly, this attack is an affront to even the most callous. There can't be a legitimate reason for something like this. If we begin to defend this as a justifiable method to air grievances, we've lost our humanity. (Which is why we must not let Religious people near the levers of power).

[AgnosticBoy]

[Replying to boatsnguitars in post #3]

Please post a link to that podcast. If I find it, I'll edit my comment and post it here.




Edit:
Found this

Nevermind the full version. You need a paid subscription for that.

[Diogenes]

[Replying to Donray in post #2] The easiest way to cut thru the fiction in Post #2 is to look at what the Jews themselves have recorded.
First, how far back in time do you want to go? Just using the Jews own history, what Christians call the Old Testament, the land was taken by the Jews because their 'god' told them to take it by violence.


Today, according to the Jewish Virtual Library the area they call "Israel/Palestine" is recorded from
1517 to the present.
In 1517 the Jews comprised 1.7% of the population
In 1918 it was 8.1%
1936: 30%
Then from 32% in 1947 the Jewish population jumped to 82.1%
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/je ... 17-present

1947-1948 is critical.

Creation of the state of Israel and 1948 war

In 1947 - two years after the end of the Second World War and the horror of the Holocaust - the UN General Assembly voted to partition Palestine into an Arab state and a Jewish state, against significant opposition.

"That set in motion a civil war in Palestine between the Arab and Jewish communities," Professor Rogan said.
In the run-up to the British withdrawal from the area, Jewish and Arab militias clashed - resulting in the loss of Arab Palestinian towns to the Jewish community.

https://news.sky.com/story/israeli-pale ... e-12982135

Hamas, of course, is a criminal/terrorist organization that should be extinguished.
I don't have a dog in this fight, except to point out this religious/tribal/culture war that has been going on for thousands of years, each side retaliating with a passion fueled by religious beliefs. Such beliefs cannot be reasoned with.

[AgnosticBoy]

Palestinian land stolen in 1948, more in 1967, then more every day in the West Bank makes acts of terrorism inevitable. Then Netanyahu put a right wing criminal in charge of the 'Ministry of Justice,' and... BIG SURPRISE! ... another war.
"If I go the to write indictment number one, it would go to Israel's Justice Minister YARIV LEVIN. He is the man who drove this insane, corrupt, dishonest effort to basically take over the power of the Supreme Court. With Netanyahu's help, he fractured Israel. He fractured Israeli society. He fractured the Israeli ministry, the military. He fractured the Israeli air force...."
__ Tom Friedman

https://www.rawstory.com/tom-friedman-i ... A-TIAtHv6Y

I'd also want to know when did the Arabs occupy Palestine. Some history says that it wasn't until the 7th century CE.

If most of the Palestinians are Arabs, then it's hypocritical to point out that Jews stole land when Arabs have done the same.

Either way, even if the land is stolen, that doesn't justify eliminating all Jews, especially using terroristic methods, like kidnapping, torturing, and slaughtering civilians.

[boatsnguitars]

[Replying to boatsnguitars in post #3]

Please post a link to that podcast. If I find it, I'll edit my comment and post it here.




Edit:
Found this

Nevermind the full version. You need a paid subscription for that.

I found it on Google Podcasts or some app like that. I don't have a paid subscrippy, in case people are interested.

[boatsnguitars]

I'd be interested if WLC has spoken about this, as he has been very vocal about the slaughter of the Midianites and Canaanites in the Bible. He has justified those similar acts because in his mind, with God, everything is justified: Gods Ends justify his Means.

I think we all should expect people who defend the genocide in the Bible to explain why this is different, and we should expose them as the horrible people they are.

[William]

[boatsnguitars]

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/13/opin ... =url-share

For 56 years Israel has been subjecting Palestinians to oppressive military rule. In my book “Love Israel, Support Palestine,” I wrote: “Israeli society has to ask itself very important questions about where and why the blood of its sons and daughters was spilled. A Messianic religious minority has dragged us into a muddy swamp, and we are following them as if it were the piper from Hamelin.” When I wrote these words last year, I didn’t realize how deep in the mud we were, and how much more blood could be shed in so little time.

I am now going to defend my country against enemies who want to kill my people. Our enemies are the deadly terrorist organizations that are being controlled by Islamic extremists.

Palestinians aren’t the enemy. The millions of Palestinians who live right here next to us, between the Mediterranean Sea and Jordan, are not our enemy. Just like the majority of Israelis want to live a calm, peaceful and dignified life, so do Palestinians. Israelis and Palestinians alike have been in the grip of a religious minority for decades. On both sides, the intractable positions of a small group have dragged us into violence. It doesn’t matter who is more cruel or more ruthless. The ideologies of both have fueled this conflict, leading to the deaths of too many innocent civilians.

Religion... smh