Katie and Jesse touched on what one of my most frequent refrains was when I actually discussed progressive politics IRL: the radical islamists don’t want any of you, they barely want to keep most devout Muslim women alive, no one who is progressive, moderate or even conservative has any genuine rationale to support that cause aside from …
Katie and Jesse touched on what one of my most frequent refrains was when I actually discussed progressive politics IRL: the radical islamists don’t want any of you, they barely want to keep most devout Muslim women alive, no one who is progressive, moderate or even conservative has any genuine rationale to support that cause aside from an assumption that when the underdog is brown and not Christian, they must be right.
If you are queer, a woman, educated or at least intellectual, disabled, not Muslim, or a million other things, radical Islam does not want you and you need not support it its terrorism. It is the #1 reason why I left the faith.
This is something I wonder about too - these people are supporting people who have contempt for them. They really have no idea. I spent half a year on a kibbutz in 1982, I was able to go to Egypt because I dragged an Englishman along (during the hottest month of the year, bless him for agreeing). I would have love to visit ancient sites in other surrounding countries, a photographer friend of mine did that on his own, but I was traveling alone and, not being suicidal, I didn't go. I think there are a lot of people in the west who truly don't understand what fundamentally different worldviews we have.
I think supporters in the West are well aware that Hamas is a theocratic right-wing group but Hamas and Islamists does not equate to Palestine. Think of Malcom X. Before his trip to Mecca, he was very anti-white. Blisteringly anti-white. But even despite that, many whites supported Civil Rights and Voting Rights and the end of Jim Crow not because they thought Malcolm X liked them, but the issues transcend him. And the issues here very much transcend Hamas. This is not a referendum on Hamas.
Maybe if it were the case that a small percent of the population were imposing their extremism on a generally moderate populous. But this isn’t the case at all.
The majority support Hamas explicitly. And the overwhelming majority align far closer to Hamas on social norms than to anything close to western ideals of equality.
If we disarmed Israel today, it’d be a genocide. In the actual, literal, WWII meaning of that word. By popular support.
If Hamas and Palestine were disarmed today, there’d be peace.
And that’s the fundamental difference in this conflict.
No doubt you made the right choice by not venturing out on your own into that part of the world. And to think that that was forty years ago, when the world seemed much, much safer than it does now.
I spent 93/94 backpacking in east & southern Africa, and more recently have spent many years in Central America. I often think about the incredible difference between places like that, where there's music and laughter and dancing and women can wear what they want, and the absolute repressiveness of other places. Bizarre.
Yes yes yes. As the terrorists say, "We love death even more than you love life." They have to, in order to suppress all human instincts toward any sort of alloyed joy, laughter, or kindness.
I feel like a lot of it just comes from partisan contraryism. This used to drive me bonkers when trying to discuss Iran with my more progressive friends. The GOP wants to bomb them, so Iran must be... good?
So true. Asra Nomani just published a book about the capture of leftist institutions by radical Islamists. I haven’t read that but I’ve read her other pieces and watched her interviews. It’s interesting.
Katie and Jesse touched on what one of my most frequent refrains was when I actually discussed progressive politics IRL: the radical islamists don’t want any of you, they barely want to keep most devout Muslim women alive, no one who is progressive, moderate or even conservative has any genuine rationale to support that cause aside from an assumption that when the underdog is brown and not Christian, they must be right.
If you are queer, a woman, educated or at least intellectual, disabled, not Muslim, or a million other things, radical Islam does not want you and you need not support it its terrorism. It is the #1 reason why I left the faith.
This is something I wonder about too - these people are supporting people who have contempt for them. They really have no idea. I spent half a year on a kibbutz in 1982, I was able to go to Egypt because I dragged an Englishman along (during the hottest month of the year, bless him for agreeing). I would have love to visit ancient sites in other surrounding countries, a photographer friend of mine did that on his own, but I was traveling alone and, not being suicidal, I didn't go. I think there are a lot of people in the west who truly don't understand what fundamentally different worldviews we have.
I think supporters in the West are well aware that Hamas is a theocratic right-wing group but Hamas and Islamists does not equate to Palestine. Think of Malcom X. Before his trip to Mecca, he was very anti-white. Blisteringly anti-white. But even despite that, many whites supported Civil Rights and Voting Rights and the end of Jim Crow not because they thought Malcolm X liked them, but the issues transcend him. And the issues here very much transcend Hamas. This is not a referendum on Hamas.
Maybe if it were the case that a small percent of the population were imposing their extremism on a generally moderate populous. But this isn’t the case at all.
The majority support Hamas explicitly. And the overwhelming majority align far closer to Hamas on social norms than to anything close to western ideals of equality.
If we disarmed Israel today, it’d be a genocide. In the actual, literal, WWII meaning of that word. By popular support.
If Hamas and Palestine were disarmed today, there’d be peace.
And that’s the fundamental difference in this conflict.
Weren’t hamas democratically elected in the 20-teens?
Try 2007. There hasn’t been an election since.
No doubt you made the right choice by not venturing out on your own into that part of the world. And to think that that was forty years ago, when the world seemed much, much safer than it does now.
I spent 93/94 backpacking in east & southern Africa, and more recently have spent many years in Central America. I often think about the incredible difference between places like that, where there's music and laughter and dancing and women can wear what they want, and the absolute repressiveness of other places. Bizarre.
Yes yes yes. As the terrorists say, "We love death even more than you love life." They have to, in order to suppress all human instincts toward any sort of alloyed joy, laughter, or kindness.
It's like the Mencken quote about Puritans - "the haunting fear that someone, somewhere, is having a good time".
I feel like a lot of it just comes from partisan contraryism. This used to drive me bonkers when trying to discuss Iran with my more progressive friends. The GOP wants to bomb them, so Iran must be... good?
So true. Asra Nomani just published a book about the capture of leftist institutions by radical Islamists. I haven’t read that but I’ve read her other pieces and watched her interviews. It’s interesting.
`If you are queer, a woman, educated or at least intellectual, disabled, not Muslim, or a million other things, radical Islam does not want you'
Absolutely.
End the occupation and we can defeat Hamas as we did ISIS. Until that happens they will have popular support and will be ineradicable.