Middle East Conflict

I've noticed that the abuse of posters has started for yet again having the temerity to criticise Israel.
It's fine to criticise Israel but it's not fine to justify what has happened as part of that criticism. That would be like saying the IRA had a point and good on them.

Terrorism is not compatible with any fight against oppression and it certainly isn't compatible with peace.
 
I’ve criticised Israel as much as anyone on here during the last 15 years but unlike some, I don’t believe the deliberate targeting and hostage taking of innocent civilians is justified in the situation or any war.

The rules of engagement when fighting a jihad also forbid the killing of innocent civilians.

So for quite some time I was puzzled as to how Hamas, ISIS, al-Qaeda et al. could justify this to themselves.

Eventually, I came across this interview with the former leader of Hamas, Sheikh Yassin. It's one of the most chilling, surreal sequences I have come across in any TV programme, though its also one that I used with my GCSE Islam and International Baccalaureate students for many years.


What Sheikh Yassin invokes in this interview is the principle of qisas. It is similar to the famous lex talionis or law of retributive justice found in the Bible (e.g. see Exodus 21v24 ‘An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth’). Here are two of the Quranic versions:

‘Whoever transgresses against you, respond in kind’ (Surah 2: 194)

We ordained therein for them: “Life for life, eye for eye, nose for nose, ear for ear, tooth for tooth, and wounds equal for equal.” But if any one remits the retaliation by way of charity, it is an act of atonement for himself. And if any fail to judge by (the light of) what Allah hath revealed, they are (No better than) wrong-doers.’ (Surah 5: 45)

So movements like ISIS, al-Qaeda and Hamas try to justify their terrorism by framing qisas as a law of revenge with a wide remit: if someone does something to you, you have the right to do something similar back to them. And because western countries (and Israel) have been responsible for murdering innocent civilians in places like Iraq and Palestine, ISIS, al-Qaeda and Hamas think they should be allowed to do the same thing.

This view was taken to its logical – and most extreme – conclusion by one Saudi cleric (Nasir ibn Hamad al-Fahd) in a now infamous book justifying the use of Weapons of Mass Destruction against enemy states. ‘Anyone who considers America’s aggressions against Muslims and their lands during the past decades, wrote Fahd, ‘will conclude that striking her [with WMD] is permissible merely on the basis of the rule of treating as one has been treated (qisas). No other arguments need to be mentioned.’

However, the range of this principle has traditionally been very limited. The qisas rule is usually only meant to apply to private individuals seeking justice in situations where they have been physically harmed by someone else. Typically, within the Islamic penal code, it has therefore been applied to cases of murder, manslaughter, or acts involving physical mutilation. It was not meant to apply to international affairs in a way that holds innocent civilians responsible for the crimes of their governments.

Suffice it to say that a majority of mainstream Muslim intellectuals and theologians operating from a variety of perspectives ranging from conservative to liberal utterly reject both militancy, the adoption of terrorist tactics by militants.

A good example is Asma Afsaruddin:


Closer to home, in 2002 Oxfam turned down a £5,000 pound donation, the advance fee for a book by the philosopher Ted Honderich. In it, he argued that the Palestinians 'have had a right to moral right to their terrorism as certain as was the moral right, say, of the African people of South Africa against their white captors and the apartheid state.'

All very grim and depressing, of course. But I thought this was worth mentioning.

In the case of those aforementioned Salafi-jihadists, it's also a classic case of deciding what you want to do first and then coming up with some post hoc scriptural/theological justification for it.
 
The rules of engagement when fighting a jihad also forbid the killing of innocent civilians.

So for quite some time I was puzzled as to how Hamas, ISIS, al-Qaeda et al. could justify this to themselves.

Eventually, I came across this interview with the former leader of Hamas, Sheikh Yassin. It's one of the most chilling, surreal sequences I have come across in any TV programme, though its also one that I used with my GCSE Islam and International Baccalaureate students for many years.


What Sheikh Yassin invokes in this interview is the principle of qisas. It is similar to the famous lex talionis or law of retributive justice found in the Bible (e.g. see Exodus 21v24 ‘An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth’). Here are two of the Quranic versions:

‘Whoever transgresses against you, respond in kind’ (Surah 2: 194)

We ordained therein for them: “Life for life, eye for eye, nose for nose, ear for ear, tooth for tooth, and wounds equal for equal.” But if any one remits the retaliation by way of charity, it is an act of atonement for himself. And if any fail to judge by (the light of) what Allah hath revealed, they are (No better than) wrong-doers.’ (Surah 5: 45)

So movements like ISIS, al-Qaeda and Hamas try to justify their terrorism by framing qisas as a law of revenge with a wide remit: if someone does something to you, you have the right to do something similar back to them. And because western countries (and Israel) have been responsible for murdering innocent civilians in places like Iraq and Palestine, ISIS, al-Qaeda and Hamas think they should be allowed to do the same thing.

This view was taken to its logical – and most extreme – conclusion by one Saudi cleric (Nasir ibn Hamad al-Fahd) in a now infamous book justifying the use of Weapons of Mass Destruction against enemy states. ‘Anyone who considers America’s aggressions against Muslims and their lands during the past decades, wrote Fahd, ‘will conclude that striking her [with WMD] is permissible merely on the basis of the rule of treating as one has been treated (qisas). No other arguments need to be mentioned.’

However, the range of this principle has traditionally been very limited. The qisas rule is usually only meant to apply to private individuals seeking justice in situations where they have been physically harmed by someone else. Typically, within the Islamic penal code, it has therefore been applied to cases of murder, manslaughter, or acts involving physical mutilation. It was not meant to apply to international affairs in a way that holds innocent civilians responsible for the crimes of their governments.

Suffice it to say that a majority of mainstream Muslim intellectuals and theologians operating from a variety of perspectives ranging from conservative to liberal utterly reject both militancy, the adoption of terrorist tactics by militants.

A good example is Asma Afsaruddin:


Closer to home, in 2002 Oxfam turned down a £5,000 pound donation, the advance fee for a book by the philosopher Ted Honderich. In it, he argued that the Palestinians 'have had a right to moral right to their terrorism as certain as was the moral right, say, of the African people of South Africa against their white captors and the apartheid state.'

All very grim and depressing, of course. But I thought this was worth mentioning.

In the case of those aforementioned Salafi-jihadists, it's also a classic case of deciding what you want to do first and then coming up with some post hoc scriptural/theological justification for it.

Every now and then you see a post worth reading and it makes up for the other 200 calling people antisemites and Islamaphobes, terrorists and apartheid apologists etc.

Worth pointing out that the salafiyya are by no means unique in using religious texts to justify their actions rather than acting according to their religious text though.

I suppose an interesting question is that if these people would have carried out their attack whether the Quran allowed it or not, is religion actually only a surface level motivation that serves as a distraction from the other roots of the conflict?
 
Last edited:
In the case of those aforementioned Salafi-jihadists, it's also a classic case of deciding what you want to do first and then coming up with some post hoc scriptural/theological justification for it.
Well exactly. The reality is more of a tactical one, I think. People will find justification for whatever they can in war and conflict, and particularly when you have two vastly unequal sides, the weaker of the two tends to resort to terrorist-style activities. It's a terrible tactic from a public-relations perspective, but people living under what they see as an unjust occupation their entire lives probably aren't thinking too rationally and carefully about things. And there are enough people in the world that think their cause is justified that they are willing to overlook pretty egregious transgressions. Who would suddenly stop supporting their 'side' in the Russia-Ukraine conflict if a bunch of human rights violations emerged on their side? Probably not many.

I remember someone pointing out that Hamas used to be big into the suicide bombing, no doubt with a certain amount of theological encouragement. But as soon as they got access to rockets, this tactic suddenly died out, and apparently so did the theological argument too.
 
‘Using hostages as human shields is treating them well.’

‘Isreal are going to kill their own hostages.’

Absolutely staggering.

No I said Israel would kill someone to prevent them becoming a hostage.

Because every time they had soldiers become POWs in the past it meant they had to release scores of militants for each soldier caught.

It isn't a national tragedy if a soldier dies in conflict, it is if he becomes a hostage and meets a grisly end and the cost of getting them back is politically humiliating.
 

Don't have an account? Register now and see fewer ads!

SIGN UP
Back
Top
  AdBlock Detected
Bluemoon relies on advertising to pay our hosting fees. Please support the site by disabling your ad blocking software to help keep the forum sustainable. Thanks.