Israel Launches Ground Invasion of Gaza

Ole!

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1) I thought the apostasy issue has been discussed before in D&D. There is no death penalty for apostasy. Only the Creator can judge who is a Muslim and who is not. Only It can determine the fate of apostasy. It is both judge, jury, and executioner.

There is a death penalty for traitors or anyone who attacks you in this life on Earth. It's self-defense and the consequences of treason. I don't what German law says about these two, but in the US, both treason and self-defense justify using deadly force to the extent needed. However, if they lay down their weapons and offer peace, you must accept it according to the Quran. This does NOT apply to some person who becomes agnostic or converts to Buddhism and so on.

Several of you have read and have heard various Muslim scholars say otherwise to the above. I thumb my nose at them. Islam has no central authority to act as a referee who could denounce one view and uphold another.

It's a free market. Which leads to the need for separation of church and state. With such a diversity of interpretations on how to be a Muslim, freedom of expression is key hence no DP for apostates as so many of you believe. No one definitely knows who's a true American. And you know what? It really doesn't matter because everyone can be an American in their own way under our rule of law. It's the same in Islam despite what ISIS, a 'scholar', or your Arab taxi driver says.

2) The highest good in Islam is attaining true oneness with you and your mind, you and other people, you and the environment, and you and the Power. It's recognizing the material world before our eyes as being a theater prop. It is a subjective reality, but there is also a greater objective reality - ultimate oneness.

All creation is designed to be more chaotic as time passes. However, we're given a gift to counter the forces of disharmony by actively pursuing oneness. Through education, love for all creation, curiosity, and rational discourse, the Muslim discovers the confines of his existence and thus comes slightly closer to the One.

TL;DR Islam is grossly misunderstood. No death penalty for apostates. Islam's ultimate goal isn't dying to protect the faith. Islam needs no protection. Islam is the voluntary surrender to God's will so a human dying to protect it is a strange and arrogant idea.

 

Both sides in this need to make changes - both Israel and Hamas. However, it amazes me that Israel gets called murderers when they drop a few bombs on very specific targets in response to hundreds and hundreds of rockets launched at Israeli civilians. Israel warns the inhabitants of the houses with texts messages, phone calls, and leaflets while Hamas tells the occupants to go back to their homes.

Right now Israel is seen as the bad guy because they actually hit their targets. If Israel didn't have the Iron dome, there'd be thousands of dead Israelis vs less than a hundred dead Palestinians over the last 2 weeks.

 

Interesting.

And indicative of our Western ignorance, and the largely undereducated indigenous Middle-Eastern populations' understanding of Islam the religion, and what some Islamic religious reformers, like Maajid Nawaz, call this bastardized interpretation of state-centric Islam, "Islamism", which has largely spawned this type of kamikaze religious fervor in recent times (since at least the 1980s).

Because Islam, as a religion, has no governing or authoritative voice (and proponents of "Islamism" often are Western educated and politically motivated, with little to now understanding or acceptance of traditional Islam), it is very easy for the disaffected, who suffer greatly from disjointed and self-serving politics, to gravitate toward a message tailored to address their grief and despair, delivered by those who have the charisma to deliver a message, and the depravity to exploit anyone who would embrace it indiscriminately.

The pogroms of the Roman Catholic Church, which for centuries guided and pushed political decisions, are eerily familiar here, to me. And say what you want about the Vatican (please)...there could be no denying that there was at least a uniform voice (whatever the motive) among state and national politics which ultimately led to the formation of a state not tethered to a religious procession of doctrine or theology ---the United States.

"...We have no king but Caesar..." indeed.

I've said this before from my own perspective. For any semblance of "Islam" to survive, it must establish a governing body to separate "religious" truth from state fiction, and it must do so under the glare of a world stage that is not as isolated as other faiths and religions had the opportunity to do before science and technology accelerated our awareness and accessibility.

And the most difficult trick may be in doing all of this with what amounts to no "state" or "country" to build around.

Iran is seemingly preparing to deal with the rest of the world much the same way China has. As close to an "Islamic" country as we can determine, Iran may be what the future holds for Islam, ironically, after all of its posturing and bluster politically the past several years.

We "denounce" China's human rights policies, for instance, but don't seem to mind doing business with them. And China deals with the west only so far as it doesn't pervade their national identity.

An odd sort of peace undoubtedly, but one, though admittedly tenuous at times, is more sustainable that anything we see currently going on in that part of the world.

Don'tcha just LOVE all this?

History, I mean?

 

I understand the no-win situation you're highlighting. I don't disagree with it, Israel is in a tough position politically because Hamas is playing dirty and has no regard for its own civilians.

For proper accountability and perspective, "a few bombs" = 1500+ airstrikes (Hamas has a similar number of rocket attacks), and the "warnings" have been reduced to a check box to mark off before pressing the "fire" button.

In the US, we had hours of warning to leave our homes when the fires came, but people were still stuck in the streets due to the congestion it caused - and it took hours before the neighborhood was finally evacuated. If this happens in the "organized" first world, how can somebody expect a war-torn third world society to GTFO in under two minutes before death rains from above? How do they know that the place they run to won't be bombed also?

"I'm going to be swinging my arms like this, and if any part of
you should happen to get in the way, that's YOUR problem!"
- Bart to Lisa Simpson

 

Israel didn't have the iron dome before 2002 there never were 'thousands of dead Israelis' back then due to Hamas rocket fire. I get the sense that you are pulling stuff out of your proverbial rear.

 

What does it matter if they have iron dome or not? Just because they have a technology that reduces the effectiveness of the rockets doesn't make Hamas any more innocent.

The bottom line is that this is guerrilla warfare. You have one army that is hiding within the civilian population, dressed as civilians, using a tunnel system to funnel resources. Throw in the fact that innocent Palestinians have nowhere to go makes this infinitely more complicated. Something has to be done to demilitarize Gaza. This is the only way Egypt will open up borders and Israel will end the blockade.

We can and should all hope for the least amount of civilian casualties, but the only answer to a constant barrage of rocket fire or attempted kidnappings through tunnel systems at this time is boots on the ground. We shall see if Hamas can come to a diplomatic resolution with Israel, but there is a clear argument that Israel can't sit back and continue to let rockets come down.

The article reported that they were cheering on the air strikes that are designed to stop Hamas from firing rockets. You'd cheer the rockets on if you believed your military was protecting you.

 

That's because the most effective tool for terrorists back then was suicide bombings.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Palestinian_suicide_attacks

In 2001-2003 alone there were 110 suicide bombings in Israel.

There you go again with accusing people of lying or making stuff up. You'd be surprised that while people may disagree with you, they are more than capable of thinking for themselves.

 

Except for Jews of course, because you unequivocally speak for all of them as you have already made clear

 

Please, come with personal attacks. Please quote me where I stated that I speak for all jews? If you believe that the massive majority of jews don't support Zionism and Israel, then:

1. You don't have any jewish friends outside of common political circles.
2. I want what you're smoking.

But please, more ad hominem and turnspeak.

 

Common political circles.

I lol'ed

 

Please show me how my argument was ad hominem.

I claimed that you believe yourself to be a spokesperson for all Jews in the US. And you just affirmed that claim by asserting that I do not have Jewish friends from common (read: your) political circles.

Not only is that not true, but it reinforces my argument that you think Jewish American political discourse is homogenous and mirrors your ideological proclivities.

It certainly doesn't. Wake up.

 

It's difficult to have a grown up discussion about specific political events if the conversation is interrupted by one kind of fallacy or another to shift the burden of accountability to Muslims or Jews to defend either the faiths they were born into, or the places they were born.

These things don't serve as real arguments to be taken seriously, and don't address the situation as it is. It's especially ludicrious when you consider that large segments of both Israeli and Palestinian society are educated and secular. Both nationalist movements began with leaders and ideologies that were absolutely secular, left-wing movements with clearly stated political goals, and often to the chagrin of their erstwhile supporters abroad who were none of those things but continue to project themselves into the narratives.

Both Hamas and the settler movement (or even religious Zionism itself) are extremely contemporary attempts to co-opt their respective movements. They are by definition, counter-revolutionary, and neither began to really matter until the 1980s.

The theocrats in this story are newcomers. They matter now because of a very mundane need in the recent past to build a political consensus, and now both societies are captive to the demands of those parties, who are still respective minorities, whether it's Khalad Mashal or Naftali Bennett.

To not be mindful of these things is to muddy the water and happily render all Israelis as megalomanical expansionists and all Palistinians as suicidal terrroists, neither of which are very fair or accurate descriptions of the people -- both of which have legitimate claims and grievances and a right to get on with their lives.

When the conversation turns to "Islam is evil" or "The Jews should have never gone there," no matter how strongly you feel about it, or assured in your moral justiification for believing it so, you are no longer having the same conversation as the grownups.

 

Good post. It's especially hard to have a real discussion in times like these when innocent people are dying. Tempers flare (including my own at times) because of passionate views that have been formed over a lifetime from unique viewpoints.

It is correct to put settlers and expansionists on the same level of suicide bombers and those firing rockets. All they and their supporters do is fuel the flames. Let us not forget that the closest we came to peace was thwarted by the jewish extremist that kill Rabin.

It's hard to fathom that we escalated from kidnappings to war. I told my fiancé as soon as it happened that there would be a ground campaign because operations have started over less.

There is still a grim reality to deal with. One that involves guerrilla war and collateral damage. Can we actually do something to stop this from happening again? Those who continue to scream "Islam is evil" or "Jews shouldn't have gone there" need to take a back seat and let the grownups step up.

 

stop launching rockets into Israel and there will be peace

 

As an additional thought, people are products of their environment. When I visited Ramallah and Hebron, I actually found the Palestinians to be far more liberal and secular than any other Arab country that surrounds them. Its funny to hear people decry Islam because I got the complete opposite feeling in the West Bank. Even in India, I found the Muslim community there far more conservative than the community in the West Bank. Also if you compare education levels of the Palestinian community to surrounding Arab countries, its pretty impressive how well educated the Palestinian community really is.

Also, for those decrying Islam as somehow a foundation for the problems in Israel/Palestine, look no further than the Maronite Christian minority to the north in Lebanon that has committed all kinds of atrocities in the ongoing Lebanese civil war. In fact, both America and Israel repeatedly made the same mistake in assuming that the Maronites were somehow more civilized than everyone else in Lebanon. The Christians there were as brutal as everyone else and took advantage of our naivety repeatedly to the point where they flat out lied to the Israelis and the Americans repeatedly. The Maronites time and time again gave false intelligence to both the Americans and Israelis and basically tricked our soldiers into bombing civilian areas in order to clear out territory for the Maronites. We directly became victims of our own false assumptions about religion.

Every religion in that region has members that have committed terrible atrocities and it is a product of where they live rather than the religion they follow. And yet time and time again, we Americans keep picking sides based on religion when its clear that no side has proven itself to be morally superior to any other.

Bottom line, take religion out for a second and analyze this conflict via the facts on the ground. Religion in areas like Lebanon and Israel/Palestine are simply distractions from deeper and more fundamental problems that shape the politics of the region. And too often we forget that.

 

Those who don't have it in their charter to destroy the others are morally superior.

 

so . . . do it but don't say it?

Rocket River

 

If Hamas had the weapons Israel has, all Jewish Israelis would be dead. But not all Gazans are dead, although Israel has had superior weapons for a long time.