Middle East Conflict

[splinter]

Closer to ww3 each passing day..tick tock. Time to restock my wine supply

 

[halfcenturyup]

And behind the scenes Tehran watches

Reh

 

[west didsblue]

Right wing dicks Vs terrorist dicks. The sooner they all kill each other the better and then hopefully the remaining Israelis and Palestinians can find a sensible way forwards together.

The right wing dicks are the government and settlers, not the IDF (in general). The leaders of the terrorist dicks are sat in Qatar and Iran. They won’t be killing each other. It will be normal soldiers and civilians that will die in the greatest numbers.
I wish I knew the answer, but we’ll get nowhere while Hamas has an iron grip on Gaza and while Netanyahu and his allies control Israeli government policy.

 

[Ducado]

The right wing dicks are the government and settlers, not the IDF (in general). The leaders of the terrorist dicks are sat in Qatar and Iran. They won’t be killing each other. It will be normal soldiers and civilians that will die in the greatest numbers.
I wish I knew the answer, but we’ll get nowhere while Hamas has an iron grip on Gaza and while Netanyahu and his allies control Israeli government policy.

It’s a fair point to make that many of those IDF soldiers will have been protesting against the Israeli government over the last few months

 

[west didsblue]

The following is in the Daily Kos which is linked in the Ukraine thread.

More and more evidence that Hamas have wittingly or unwittingly opened up another front for Russia.

I’m not seeing any NATO equipment sourced from Ukraine...

Interesting seeing North Korea among the sources. There is definitely a Russia-Iran-North Korea axis of evil emerging. Republicans need to understand that Ukraine’s fight is the same as Israel’s.

 

[Roachy]

Given the scale of destruction and death and what is undoubtedly to come, I feel it’s more than fair to look at this and discuss it in some form of isolation.

We are about to see full scale war in the Middle East imo and the direct trigger for that was Hamas and its attack.

I don't understand why people can't see this. We know there's been conflict in the region forever and a day it seems, but what is about to come in Gaza is a direct consequence of last weekends attack. The historical and political backdrop can be debated at length, but Hamas have lit the fuse this time. Just like those in Israel on Sat/Sun, it will be the civilians in Gaza who will now suffer.

 

[lightning Rodri]

This may be one of the best takes I’ve seen written since Saturday’s travesty. Everybody needs to read this:

Thank you for this.
That’s balanced, which we need to read and encourage our children to read, hoping sense prevails at least in the next generation. At some point both sides need to forget past atrocities done by each other and think about future. Easier said than done, but there's no other solution.

 

[bluejon]

Once I'd checked that Paul Moulden had opened a chippy (had to look), your reply got me thinking: has anyone ever decided that a passage in a sacred text 'is as straightforward as it gets'' and repudiated it?

Qur'an 4v34 is just such a passage because it appears to sanction domestic violence.

I have pages and pages of exegesis on it. Understandably Muslim feminist writers aren't impressed, and a mate of mine got treated to a 20 minute disquisition on this āyah up at Oxford university when he interviewed Shaykh Abdal Hakim Murad up at Oxford University. The Shaykh is also known as Tim Winter and is the brother of the sports writer Henry Winter.

But in her unflinching opposition to the passage, the Muslim feminist author Amina Wadud wrote, 'I have come to say 'no' outright to the literal implementation of this passage.' She continues, 'this verse, and the literal interpretation of hudud (penal code) both imply an ethical standard of human actions that are archaic and barbaric at this time in history.'

This is the only example of a Muslim scholar rejecting some of the Qur'an that I know of.

But a lot of (usually educated) European Muslims are also repelled by the notorious hudud punishments and do not identify with them in any way.

Meanwhile, in Christianity, there's Richard Holloway, the former Bishop of Edinburgh. He reckons that if a passage in the Bible looks like it's a load of bollocks, you should just ignore it. While still in post, he wrote this book:

View attachment 95730

Of course, that didn't go down well and he eventually left the Church in disgust at its homophobia.

Just thought it was worth a mention.

Luke 14:23: “Then the master told his servant, 'Go out to the roads and country lanes and compel them to come in, so that my house will be full.

This passage was used by the Catholics in France in the 1600s to justify forcing protestants to convert to Catholicism, dragooning whole towns and raping and killing until the population converted. Because that's what Jesus wanted apparently. An apparently innocuous phrase that was used to rain terror on the Huguenots.

 

[meltonblue]

I don't understand why people can't see this. We know there's been conflict in the region forever and a day it seems, but what is about to come in Gaza is a direct consequence of last weekends attack. The historical and political backdrop can be debated at length, but Hamas have lit the fuse this time. Just like those in Israel on Sat/Sun, it will be the civilians in Gaza who will now suffer.

I think everyone can see that and people also (should at least) realise that Israel obviously has to act in response to it. I haven’t seen anyone on here actually justifying hamas or anything. There’s a difference between reasons and excuses though and unless the former is fully understood, then that is what creates the never ending cycle. Those reasons don’t just start with the direct act, that’s in part why there’s so many Israelis angry at Netanyahu too.

It’s also knowing that depending how Israel react, particularly if they do decide to remove Hamas completely, is going to be pivotal to whether another even worse version with even more angry and violent members spawns in its wake.

 

[Stephen Ireland's pants]

If you’ve got nothing to live for and life is hopeless and you don’t care if you live or die

So the few with that attitude/outlook have ruined life for the 338.000 men women and children who have now been displaced because of their selfish beliefs. They have no homes to go back to because of this .