Does a right to defend yourself mean invading someone else?

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04 Oct 2024, 9:23 pm

cyberdad wrote:

Why would he put his own life at risk? People like Mosab and Ayaan Hirsi Ali need bodyguards for the rest of their lives for simply speaking up.

Ever since Mosab was first captured by the Israeli government, his life has been at risk, from one quarter or another, no matter what he did or did not do. He is now relatively safe here in the U.S.A.

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cyberdad
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04 Oct 2024, 9:31 pm

Mona Pereth wrote:

cyberdad wrote:

Why would he put his own life at risk? People like Mosab and Ayaan Hirsi Ali need bodyguards for the rest of their lives for simply speaking up.

He's the son of the founder of HAMAS. If he walked back to them after the Israelis jailed him nobody in HAMAS would touch him. He has made a number of decisions that in no way give him any personal benefit.

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04 Oct 2024, 9:36 pm

cyberdad wrote:

Mona Pereth wrote:

Yes the United States has done horrible things. We need to stop doing horrible things. And one of the horrible things we need to stop doing is giving unlimited support to other governments, like Israel, that also do horrible things.

I too am against excessive civilian tolls, but I also acknowledge that in order for you and me to enjoy our relative freedoms and prosperity our governments engage in terrible things in the name of keeping the peace and protecting our national interests.

Only on rare occasions are these terrible things truly necessary.

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04 Oct 2024, 9:47 pm

Mona Pereth wrote:

Only on rare occasions are these terrible things truly necessary.

We don't really the half of it Mona do we? there's a saying called "in for a penny, in for a pound". One interpretation of this is the same principles should apply regardless of the magnitude.

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04 Oct 2024, 11:30 pm

cyberdad wrote:

I suspect he might not have been released, in the first place, had he not agreed to become an informant.

I don't know for sure, of course.

What I do know is that he (1) makes bigoted over-generalizations about Muslims and (2) caters to Israeli propaganda interests by denying obvious truths about the situation of Palestinians.

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04 Oct 2024, 11:43 pm

Mona Pereth wrote:

If he was covering himself before, he certainly doesn't need to do it in America. I wouldn't do what he is doing for even $100m since I never know when I will be deleted around the corner.

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05 Oct 2024, 1:19 am

cyberdad wrote:

If he was covering himself before, he certainly doesn't need to do it in America.

He does need to earn a living. And, given his life history, the easiest way for him to make a living is by being a professional Islamophobe -- for which there is indeed a market, alas. And probably enough of a market that he can afford bodyguards.

On the other hand, given his past, he is probably unemployable in just about any other field.

cyberdad wrote:

I wouldn't do what he is doing for even $100m since I never know when I will be deleted around the corner.

Here in the West, there are quite a few professional Islamophobes who have been around for quite a while and have not been "deleted around the corner."

(Note: By "professional Islamophobes," I mean people who make their living as writers, speakers, YouTubers, etc., catering to anti-Muslim bigotry. In Mosab's case it wouldn't surprise me if he is also getting paid by the Israeli government to be a propagandist.)

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05 Oct 2024, 2:04 am

Yeah I am not sure why he would choose to openly be an apostate (assuming he's pro-Israeli for $$). Palestinians living in Israel as citizens have a higher standard of living than Arabs in neighbouring countries. You can be pro-Israel and not have to be anti-islam.

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05 Oct 2024, 2:10 am

But he hits the nail on the head about HAMAS
https://nypost.com/2023/11/07/news/hama ... -in-qatar/

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05 Oct 2024, 6:19 am

cyberdad wrote:

Yes, you can be pro-Israel and not have to be anti-Islam.

Nevertheless, here in the U.S.A. at least, there have been quite a few Zionists who have seemed to feel that the best way to maximize American sympathy for Israel is by whipping up Islamophobia. Examples of folks who appear to have this attitude include Daniel Pipes, Pamela Geller, and Robert Spencer, all of whom tried to whip up a moral panic over alleged attempts to impose "Sharia law" here in the U.S.A. during the decade or so after 9/11/2001.

It wouldn't surprise me if the Israeli government, too, at least covertly, sees Islamophobia as politically useful for propaganda purposes, public statements to the contrary notwithstanding.

(I should add that I don't think the Israeli government is, by any means, the only government to engage in covert overseas propaganda operations contrary to its own professed ideals. I am sure that the U.S. government has done this sort of thing too. Ditto the Russian and Chinese governments.)

Last edited by Mona Pereth on 05 Oct 2024, 6:32 am, edited 2 times in total.

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05 Oct 2024, 6:26 am

Mona Pereth wrote:

Fnord wrote:

Good luck with that. When when you're accustomed to sovereignty, being forced to share governance with your enemy feels like defeat.

But it's the only solution that can possibly work. . .

That's also what people have said about different attempts at setting up Communist states.

"Ours is the only way that will work", over and over and over again.

To paraphrase the late Yogi Berra: "In theory, there is no difference between theory and reality; while in reality, there always is."

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05 Oct 2024, 8:18 am

cyberdad wrote:

But he hits the nail on the head about HAMAS
https://nypost.com/2023/11/07/news/hama ... -in-qatar/

??? What is this article supposed to prove? That the head of Hamas, who is also the head of state in Gaza, has been whisked off to safety (as one would expect) and has a lavish lifestyle (as one would also expect)?

Heads of state, even of poor countries, who don't have lavish lifestyles are exceedingly rare, if indeed they exist at all. So I don't see this article as especially damning. There are plenty of worse things one could justifiably say about Hamas.

Last edited by Mona Pereth on 05 Oct 2024, 8:33 am, edited 1 time in total.

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05 Oct 2024, 8:27 am

Fnord wrote:

Mona Pereth wrote:

Fnord wrote:

Good luck with that. When when you're accustomed to sovereignty, being forced to share governance with your enemy feels like defeat.

But it's the only solution that can possibly work. . .

That's also what people have said about different attempts at setting up Communist states.

... And about ending Apartheid in South Africa. The latter actually did eventually happen, although it took a very long time to happen.

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05 Oct 2024, 6:21 pm

Mona Pereth wrote:

Heads of state, even of poor countries, who don't have lavish lifestyles are exceedingly rare, if indeed they exist at all. So I don't see this article as especially damning. There are plenty of worse things one could justifiably say about Hamas.

Put yourself in Mosab's shoes. the HAMAS leadership ordered the torture of those not towing the party line and subjecting their people to austerity measures while ordering them to be on a war footing with Israel. Meanwhile the people in charge are living the high life. I recall one of the leaders of ISIS sporting the world's most expensive Rolex while condemning western values. they are no different to mindset of evil dictators except they operate extremist movements which manipulate and control people.

I think he was already carrying dissonance about the disparity between hypocrisy of the leadership and what they were doing to their own people. I am not disputing his time in an Israeli jail tipped him over to be against HAMAS. But its disingenuous to automatically say he is motivated by personal greed.

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05 Oct 2024, 6:57 pm

Mona Pereth wrote:

It wouldn't surprise me if the Israeli government, too, at least covertly, sees Islamophobia as politically useful for propaganda purposes, public statements to the contrary notwithstanding.

People give their group a bad name by their actions. I actually don't think the Israelis need to stoke fires of islamophobia. the rhetoric from common folk living in virtually all muslim countries over Israel speak for itself.

When I lived in Malaysia I studied islam, I read the Enlish version of the Quran and was seriously interested in the philosophy and contemplated becoming one. there are several things that only ex-muslims (and people like myself who dived into living with muslims) know that non-muslims don't.

there is actually no such thing as "moderate muslim". You either are muslim or you are not. this is important when it comes to Israel. Jerusalem is a holy site for islam. thus all muslims expect the same thing, that the land of Palestine is returned to Palestinians. It is a fundemental requirement. Muslims don't share this with non-muslims but it is almost like the Lord's prayer for christians, speaking in mosques about how to defeat Israel and give it back to the Palestinians. this is one of the least known reasons why the conflict there will likely never end.

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