An Issue Of Valuing The Lives Of Others

[Revoltingest]

In the news, our leaders express concern for Israelis
killed & kidnapped, but are largely silent regarding
the far greater number of Palestinians killed by
Israel's massive bombing campaign, & embargo
on water, energy, & freedom to move...killing &
maiming thousands of non-combatants whose
only crime is being where Israel keeps them.

Democrats' divisions on Israel-Hamas war boil over in Michigan as Detroit-area Muslims feel betrayed

Many top Michigan Democrats, including Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, took part in a huge pro-Israel rally near Detroit after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on the country.

apnews.com

In USA there are sanctions imposed on people
who show support for Palestinians. Israel's
sway over Christians is creating a deadly new
McCarthyism.

After Writing an Anti-Israel Letter, Harvard Students Are Doxxed

A truck with a billboard displayed their names and photos, and critics put out do-not-hire lists. The students say it’s a campaign to shut them up.

www.nytimes.com

Battle against hate: Violence, bigotry toward Palestinian Americans spiking across US

Palestinian and Muslim Americans say discrimination against their communities has risen since the start of the Israel-Hamas war.

www.usatoday.com

The Mounting Onslaught of Censorship and Suppression

"A failure to stop this new McCarthyism would be to surrender to the forces of reaction that tragically are carrying the day."

inthesetimes.com

We should not tolerate the evil of state terrorism,
even when committed by a nominal ally. USA's
voters & leaders must reckon with their subversion
of their own values.

Disclaimer...
This post is about general trends in groups,
not about every single individual, who might
differ from their tribe.

 

[Stevicus]

There's some guys on the radio circuit who might be considered to be agitators. (I won't say which tribe they're from, but it might be easy to guess.) Some people might have it on in the background all day at work. A lot of people look at social media, internet, and national TV networks as being the root of the problem, but radio seems to be overlooked as a major contributory factor in riling people up and promoting these kinds of ideas.

 

[icehorse]

In the news, our leaders express concern for Israelis
killed & kidnapped, but are largely silent regarding
the far greater number of Palestinians killed by
Israel's massive bombing campaign, & embargo
on water, energy, & freedom to move...killing &
maiming thousands of non-combatants whose
only crime is being where Israel keeps them.

such a stilted summary of the situation

 

[Mike10]

Sayyid is an honorific surname of Muslims recognized as descendants of the Islamic prophet Muhammad . Muladí were the native population of the Iberian Peninsula who adopted Islam after the Muslim conquest of the Iberian Peninsula in the early 8th century. the word muwallad is used to describe Arabs of mixed parentage. muwallad is 'a person of mixed ancestry', especially a descendant of one Arab and one non-Arab parent. in 1378 when his attempts to stop the Turks failed, Ivan Shishman reluctantly sent Kera Tamara in the harem of the Sultan in the Ottoman capital Bursa.[2] She kept her Christian faith. In the Boril Synadnik her fate was praised as a self-sacrifice. The Muslims' greatest motivation to start a siege was the Hadith coming from the last Muslim Prophet: Muhammad (saw). The Hadith cited "they will conquer Konstantiniye. Hail the leader and the army to whom that good fortune will be given".
As for all the national storyline and praise of the European migrations during the disrests in Europe, the Irish Potato famine, the 1848 springtimes of Nations, the Statue of Liberty regarding Religion... If someone were in touch with Egyptian character a great minority of Coptic Christians as its called in Egypt, while Mulsims tried to destroy the Pyramids, as Muslims swept through the native lands and character of all cultures and peoples. Christianity marks a history and resistence to a tribal religion.

 

[Debater Slayer]

such a stilted summary of the situation

What is incorrect about what he said?

 

[Estro Felino]

Honestly I have remarked that the birth rates are tendentiously high, in Gaza.

Not even comparable to those of Europe.

Good. It means that they conduct a pleasant life, if they make so many children.
Children who deserve to live in peace.
And if there is the project of creating big families, this means that there is a project of living peaceful lives.

Because, you know, the UN will help all those who desire peace.
All those who want peace, they will get it.

 

[icehorse]

What is incorrect about what he said?

Context matters, and for his perspective to be true, he must be using an overly constrained context. Let's zoom out and consider this perspective; Muslims believe that their book instructs them to conquer the lands of infidels. Hitchen explains this quite eloquently:

This broader context must be a part of the conversation. Apart from Israel, Muslims have taken over the entire ME. Members of other religions have systematically had their lands taken by Muslims.

 

[Mike10]

I'm not quoting a British Conspiracy inside a British Conspiracy.... Lawrence of Arabia... Break the 1000 year Islamic Sultanate and Ottoman Empire into oil barons. Jews are handed back Israel doesn't get any praise for them. I've never heard it. The minute there's British media and they only get enough money to broadcast their media at you, when its 1. totally wrong, 2. domestically repugnant 3. Jamaica

 

[Debater Slayer]

Context matters, and for his perspective to be true, he must be using an overly constrained context. Let's zoom out and consider this perspective; Muslims believe that their book instructs them to conquer the lands of infidels. Hitchen explains this quite eloquently:

There are almost two billion Muslims in the world from different cultures, sects, and countries. Not all Muslims believe that the Qur'an instructs them to conquer non-Muslims' lands, and I don't see what a belief would change about @Revoltingest's assessment of events that have actually happened.

As for Hitchens, he was markedly biased against religion and against Islam and Christianity in particular, and many of his assessments about both were consequently also overgeneralized and heavily biased. Still, he was sharply critical of Israel, so I'm not sure he's the most suitable person to cite in support of your point on this subject.

This broader context must be a part of the conversation. Apart from Israel, Muslims have taken over the entire ME. Members of other religions have systematically had their lands taken by Muslims.

What does that change about @Revoltingest's assessment? Does it negate the fact that Israel's bombings have killed thousands of Palestinian civilians who lived in an open-air prison?

 

[Mike10]

all peoples, languages and cultures have a unique contribution to make to World Christianity. Christianity & Language - Gordon Conwell
Christians are mother-tongue speakers of 82% of the world’s languages, compared with Muslims, the next highest, speaking 25% of the world’s languages.
In languages 11-20 one finds Amharic (Ethiopia), Korean, Yoruba and Igbo (Nigeria), Cebuano (Philippines), and Tamil and Malayalam (India).
The ancient Greek-Roman collaborations in Religion of the Greco Roman world lead to half Greek Popes in Rome, until the mid 800s leading to the Great Schism where an Italian is always Pope in Rome. The Greek Mythology lends to Roman Religion and Biblical Hellenist Hades, Athena, Zeus, are all major figures of the early Chruch. Europe-wide Christianity until 800s ROman Catholic leans toward the Byzantine Anatolian towns of Nicaea and Chalcedon and their councils in Greek. Properly a single conquest out of Arabia by Arabs is narrowly seen as multilingual by the claim of the Turkish Roman propaganda in the 1500s. Iranian?

 

[icehorse]

What does that change about @Revoltingest's assessment? Does it negate the fact that Israel's bombings have killed thousands of Palestinian civilians who lived in an open-air prison?

Because context matters.

 

[Debater Slayer]

Because context matters.

It matters for the entire conflict, and Israel's actions, whether current or past ones, are also part of that context. I don't see anything in what you've said that negates what @Revoltingest said about the effects of Israel's bombings on Palestinian noncombatants.

 

[Estro Felino]

Honestly I do not endorse the choice of including "Christians" in the title.

So I would kindly suggest the OP to edit the title.

Christians believe in a God than loves any religion.
If you are a Christian and do not like a religious group, God cannot call you a Christian.

 

[icehorse]

It matters for the entire conflict, and Israel's actions, whether current or past ones, are also part of that context. I don't see anything in what you've said that negates what @Revoltingest said about the effects of Israel's bombings on Palestinian noncombatants.

Absolutely Israel's actions are a part of the context. But - as one example - the claim that Palestinians are noncombatants seems like a stretch to me, they voted for Hamas to lead them and Hamas was very clear on its agenda.

Let me ask you this - why hasn't the world gone after Hamas the way they went after ISIS? That question is part of the context.

 

[Debater Slayer]

Absolutely Israel's actions are a part of the context. But - as one example - the claim that Palestinians are noncombatants seems like a stretch to me, they voted for Hamas to lead them and Hamas was very clear on its agenda.

There hasn't been any election in almost two decades, and about half of Gaza's population are children, not to mention the adults who weren't old enough to vote when the last election took place. "They voted for Hamas" is factually incorrect for the majority of people in Gaza right now.

Claiming that it is a "stretch" to view Palestinians as noncombatants strikes me as extremely harmful when thousands of Palestinian civilians have been killed in the bombings so far and are experiencing a humanitarian disaster due to the bombardment and the blockade that has been depriving them of necessities such as water, electricity, and fuel. Many hospitals are experiencing collapse while sick and injured people are in urgent need of care.

Israel's policies and actions including decades-long illegal occupation, encroachment on Palestinian territories, failure to sufficiently address settler violence, excessive detention of Palestinian civilians, and military activities that kill disproportionate numbers of Palestinian civilians are part and parcel of why radicalism has festered and given Hamas more foothold in Gaza. A sustained status quo of oppression has historically always been a major factor in enabling radicalism to spread and gain influence whether in this conflict or others, but Israel is now using brute force instead of trying to address any of the factors that allowed this situation to occur in the first place.

Would you have also said it would be a "stretch" to say that Americans who voted for George W. Bush were still noncombatants? What about Israelis who voted for Netanyahu?

My answer is that both of the above groups were and are noncombatants unless they take part in military operations.

Let me ask you this - why hasn't the world gone after Hamas the way they went after ISIS? That question is part of the context.

More than one military had already been deployed in the region where ISIS originated, so the situation is not analogous or comparable. I don't expect other countries to deploy forces inside Israel and Gaza and turn them into war zones on an even larger scale than they currently are.

 

[Estro Felino]

Absolutely Israel's actions are a part of the context. But - as one example - the claim that Palestinians are noncombatants seems like a stretch to me, they voted for Hamas to lead them and Hamas was very clear on its agenda.

It simply doesn't add up.

Because I have never seen them in the last years complaining about being "victims of Hamas".

Considering that if they had been victims of terrorism and fundamentalism, they could have asked the UN for political asylum in the West or in any other Arabic-speaking country.

Honestly I consider all this narrative not that reliable.

Let me ask you this - why hasn't the world gone after Hamas the way they went after ISIS? That question is part of the context.

For the same reason why the US rolls red carpets at the fundamentalist countries of the Gulf.

 

[icehorse]

There hasn't been any election in almost two decades, and about half of Gaza's population are children, not to mention the adults who weren't old enough to vote when the last election took place. "They voted for Hamas" is factually incorrect for the majority of people in Gaza right now.

Well then, why does the world stand for this?

I bet Israel would be thrilled if a UN peace keeping force entered Gaza and eliminated Hamas.

Israel's policies and actions including decades-long illegal occupation, encroachment on Palestinian territories, failure to sufficiently address settler violence, excessive detention of Palestinian civilians, and military activities that kill disproportionate numbers of Palestinian civilians are part and parcel of why radicalism has festered and given Hamas more foothold in Gaza. A sustained status quo of oppression has historically always been a major factor in enabling radicalism to spread and gain influence whether in this conflict or others, but Israel is now using brute force instead of trying to address the root causes of the problem.

Jordan and Egypt's policies are equally old.

What would you have (had?) Israel do? Hamas has been steadily turning aid money into arms for years..

Would you have also said it would be a "stretch" to say that Americans who voted for George W. Bush were still noncombatants? What about Israelis who voted for Netanyahu?

Neither of them made the destruction of another country their central charter.

 

[Debater Slayer]

Well then, why does the world stand for this?

I bet Israel would be thrilled if a UN peace keeping force entered Gaza and eliminated Hamas.

That's a guess. There's no indication that Israel would welcome such an initiative, and I doubt it would be a realistic or effective plan anyway.

Unless Israel reformed its policies, the same conditions that helped give rise to Hamas would almost surely give rise to another radical group. Using brute force that kills disproportionate numbers of civilians and overlooking the need for reform have been ineffective strategies time and time again, with disastrous humanitarian costs every time.

Jordan and Egypt's policies are equally old.

What would you have (had?) Israel do? Hamas has been steadily turning aid money into arms for years..

See above. Showing initiative to enact reform and stop encroachment on Palestinian territories (e.g., by not building illegal settlements in the West Bank) would be a start.

Neither of them made the destruction of another country their central charter.

Except that the US destroyed Afghanistan and Iraq and Netanyahu's government is now destroying Gaza after years of keeping it an open-air prison. At some point, actions speak just as loudly as charters do.

 

[Bthoth]

The model of the topic is how slavery existed for so long as well as the term savages was used in the beginning of the America's.

 

[Little Dragon]

Good. It means that they conduct a pleasant life, if they make so many children.

That is literally the opposite of how it works. The more impoverished a nation or region is, the higher the birth rate and infant mortality rate are.
The poorest nations on earth, have the highest birth rates and infant mortality rates.