Bad day to be a terrorist

[TLS Guy]

I'll play.

Reasonable? Yes. Immoral? Strong argument that it is. It can be both.

Compare the reasonableness and morality of Israel's tactics to the rationality of the bandit, which, while potentially nasty, is emminently reasonable. He wants to add to his ledger by taking from yours. He may harm or kill you in the process, which is clearly immoral, as is merely stealing from you.

Israel's emplyment of the pager tactic might have been playing dirty, but was highly targeted and restrained, and effective at crippling/eliminating Hezbollah leadership. That's a morally questionable but rational, highly favorable interaction in Israel's favor. Despite displaying overtones of intelligence, they essentially acted as a bandit.

The current Israeli conflict involves an opposition which is more 'stupid" than rational. They are stubbornly unreasonable, driven by religious zealotry. They will cause losses for Israel with no gain, indeed incurring signifigant losses to themselves. It's clarly immoral to commit the worst mass murder of Jews since the holocaust, along with some raping and hostage taking. It's irrational to initiate a hot war with a more powerful opponent. The only sliver of rationality involved is the brutish rationality of terrorism. In other words, they acted stupidly.

Bottom line: The Stupid is far more dangerous and damaging than a bandit. So we stand with Israel. They may be scoundrels, but they're OUR scoundrels, while radical islam are sworn enemies.

There has long been a fault line between Jews/Christians and Muslims.

The date recognized as the beginning of Islam is 610 AD. The Jews and Christians kept the Holy Land a sacred space. However, Islam did practice forced conversions from inception and scattered the Jews throughout Europe.

Pope Benedict at Regensburg in 2006 quoted an address from the Holy Roman Emperor in 1391

"In his lecture, the Pope, speaking in German, quoted a passage about Islam made at the end of the 14th century by Byzantine (Eastern Roman) emperor Manuel II Palaiologos. The controversial comment originally appeared in the seventh of the 26 Dialogues Held with a Certain Persian, the Worthy Mouterizes, in Anakara of Galatia, written in 1391 as an expression of the views of Manuel II, one of the last Christian rulers before the Fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Empire in 1453, on such issues as forced conversion, holy war, and the relationship between faith and reason. The passage, in the English translation published by the Vatican, was:

Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached."

In 1453 the Muslims sacked Constantinople and gave rise to the Ottoman Empire. This gave rise to the Crusades to try and claim back the Holy Land.

This led to a Christian/Muslim fault line across the Balkan States of Europe. Suliman the Magnificent even laid siege to Vienna in 1529.

The Ottomans sided with Germany in WW1 and were a big problem to the British in North Africa. This is the basis of the strange story of Lawrence of Arabia, enlisting with, and fighting with the Arabs against the Ottoman Turks in WW 1.

The Ottoman Empire finally wound up in the years immediately following WW1.

The fault lines in the modern Middle East were established by British Foreign secretary Arthur Balfour in 1917, which gave support for the establishment of the Jewish State. However Israel was not established until 1948 following WW II because of all the displaced Jews following the Nazi Pogroms. I think it is fair to say this was done without the consent or acquiescence of the Arab States.

So this fault line has continued since the founding of Islam is the seventh century AD

 

[GO-NAD!]

There has long been a fault line between Jews/Christians and Muslims.

The date recognized as the beginning of Islam is 610 AD. The Jews and Christians kept the Holy Land a sacred space. However, Islam did practice forced conversions from inception and scattered the Jews throughout Europe.

Pope Benedict at Regensburg in 2006 quoted an address from the Holy Roman Emperor in 1391

"In his lecture, the Pope, speaking in German, quoted a passage about Islam made at the end of the 14th century by Byzantine (Eastern Roman) emperor Manuel II Palaiologos. The controversial comment originally appeared in the seventh of the 26 Dialogues Held with a Certain Persian, the Worthy Mouterizes, in Anakara of Galatia, written in 1391 as an expression of the views of Manuel II, one of the last Christian rulers before the Fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Empire in 1453, on such issues as forced conversion, holy war, and the relationship between faith and reason. The passage, in the English translation published by the Vatican, was:


In 1453 the Muslims sacked Constantinople and gave rise to the Ottoman Empire. This gave rise to the Crusades to try and claim back the Holy Land.

This led to a Christian/Muslim fault line across the Balkan States of Europe. Suliman the Magnificent even laid siege to Vienna in 1529.

The Ottomans sided with Germany in WW1 and were a big problem to the British in North Africa. This is the basis of the strange story of Lawrence of Arabia, enlisting with, and fighting with the Arabs against the Ottoman Turks in WW 1.

The Ottoman Empire finally wound up in the years immediately following WW1.

The fault lines in the modern Middle East were established by British Foreign secretary Arthur Balfour in 1917, which gave support for the establishment of the Jewish State. However Israel was not established until 1948 following WW II because of all the displaced Jews following the Nazi Pogroms. I think it is fair to say this was done without the consent or acquiescence of the Arab States.

So this fault line has continued since the founding of Islam is the seventh century AD

Just a couple nits to pick, Doc.

- The exile of Jews from Israel was initiated by the Romans, who were getting tired of putting down Jewish uprisings.
- There is nothing unique about forced conversions on the part of conquering Muslim invaders. Christianity isn't prominent amongst indigenous peoples of Africa and the Americas because they observed the religious practices of colonizers and thought, "Oooo, I'll have some of that!" And, it wasn't the Moors who forced Jews to convert - it was the Inquisition.
- The Crusades began centuries before the fall of Constantinople.

 

[TLS Guy]

Just a couple nits to pick, Doc.

- The exile of Jews from Israel was initiated by the Romans, who were getting tired of putting down Jewish uprisings.
- There is nothing unique about forced conversions on the part of conquering Muslim invaders. Christianity isn't prominent amongst indigenous peoples of Africa and the Americas because they observed the religious practices of colonizers and thought, "Oooo, I'll have some of that!" And, it wasn't the Moors who forced Jews to convert - it was the Inquisition.
- The Crusades began centuries before the fall of Constantinople.

It was the fall of Constantinople that was the start of the Muslim advance into the Balkans. The major dispersal of the Jews was after the fall of Rome and definitely large due to the rise of Muslim power. The major Crusades were under Richard the Lion Heart in the latter twelfth century.

 

[GO-NAD!]

It was the fall of Constantinople that was the start of the Muslim advance into the Balkans. The major dispersal of the Jews was after the fall of Rome and definitely large due to the rise of Muslim power. The major Crusades were under Richard the Lion Heart in the latter twelfth century.

The advance into the Balkans isn't really relevant to the exile of Jews from Israel. The Crusaders massacred Jews and Muslims alike and thousands of survivors were sold into slavery. Regardless, the Romans had largely accomplished the job of expulsions before the Muslims arrived.

 

[Trell]

Antisemitism has a very long and very ugly history in Christianity.

The Holocaust and pogroms have antisemitism as cause, as obvious examples.

You can see antisemitism in works of Shakespeare with the Jewish financier Shylock wanting a “pound of flesh”. A phrase still commonly used.

You can see it in depictions of Jews in older churches.

On and on I, as well as you, can give many other examples.

So the notion that Jews and Christians are somehow BFE, historically speaking, is BS.

 

[jinjuku]

This thread was about the pagers (and subsequent walkie-talkies) being refitted with explosive devices and detonated remotely, the results of which killed children and medical workers, among injuring many more. Of those injured, not all of them were strictly Hezbollah combatants.

Can you please compare and contrast this against the Hezbollah nitrate stockpile that exploded, resulting in one of the largest, non-nuclear explosions ever recorded, that killed ~250, injured another 6,000, leveled a good part of the city and most certainly was stockpiled there with locals knowledge?

 

[jinjuku]

It was targeted, loosely. The detonation of these devices did harm civilians and non combatants, therefore indiscriminate collateral damage was incurred.

This is part of the question I'm asking, whether it was reasonable or not?

In my mind, still, it is a step too far.

As above, I get it: war is hell and civilian casualties will occur.

This act just feels wrong to me and while I'm not losing sleep over it, I also have not been able to fully reconcile it.

It was incredibly targeted. Down to the person carrying the payload. It wasn't a guided 500lb munition.

I think it's very reasonable tactic. It wasn't an indiscriminate land mine or IED or 100 rockets just lobbed at population centers with zero regard for where it lands.

I'd like to see what ever outfit that pulled this incredible feat off does next.

IMO you sound like a terrorist apologist at best.

 

[Trell]

It was incredibly targeted. Down to the person carrying the payload. It wasn't a guided 500lb munition.

I think it's very reasonable tactic. It wasn't an indiscriminate land mine or IED or 100 rockets just lobbed at population centers with zero regard for where it lands.

I'd like to see what ever outfit that pulled this incredible feat off does next.

I certainly agree with this.

IMO you sound like a terrorist apologist at best.

I disagree as he wants it even more targeted with no collateral damage. I can’t see that happening any time soon and would effectively block Israel from defending themselves.

 

[GO-NAD!]

It was incredibly targeted. Down to the person carrying the payload. It wasn't a guided 500lb munition.

I think it's very reasonable tactic. It wasn't an indiscriminate land mine or IED or 100 rockets just lobbed at population centers with zero regard for where it lands.

I'd like to see what ever outfit that pulled this incredible feat off does next.

IMO you sound like a terrorist apologist at best.

I agree with you except for the last sentence, which goes a bit far, IMO.

 

[highfigh]

What would you call it then? Honestly. I'm not trying to be a d!ck about this but since you are challenging the label... what flavor of hatred is it?

Islam is an ideology that anyone can accept, if they're so inclined, and that's the reason calling it 'racism' is incorrect. The Middle East has been a mess of violence, dishonesty, illogic and hatred for 2000+ years and it's not going to end anytime soon, or by some short-lived agreement/cease-fire.

The support for Palestine is confusing to me since it has been adopted by people whose human rights would be ignored if they were to go to that part of the world- the ones I have seen interviewed know almost nothing about Islam, have only seen less than 20 years of, well, anything since they're mostly about that age- they live online and we all know that opinions are more important than facts, but as we see at AH, it's easier to ask questions than to do the actual searching.

That region has never been open to simple solutions and the last year has seen a lot of military violence from Israel, but the violence from Hamas/Hezbollah has often been more like terrorists and they can't be let off for killing civilians. What started this most recent conflict? Launching 4300 rockets with 364 killed at a music festival.

The link has more details and shows some of the points in the first few paragraphs that haven't been mentioned enough, IMO-

2023 Hamas-led attack on Israel - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[jinjuku]

I agree with you except for the last sentence, which goes a bit far, IMO.

It may but I don't think it's a remotely reasonable ask for something even better than getting down to a device the bad guys are wearing.

This literally went from guided 500,1000,2000lb munitions to GRAM's. And to ignore that wholesale? The apologist is about the only conclusion I can come up with as all other explanations are just not as logical.

 

[highfigh]

To the rest of this... I get it. I really do. I'm being challenged for thinking about morality and asking a question. Others are seemingly quite ok with the "kill'em all and let god sort'em out" mentality.

Is philosophical thought a crime now? Is challenging a persons sense of ethics somehow an inappropriate topic? Is disagreeing with Netanyahu a crime?

All I'm really doing is asking to engage in a conversation. Yes, it's a difficult one.. one which I am not trying to blame Israel or enact some foreign policy dispute over but which I am finding myself challenged by what I see and think I understand, and by whether or not I'm personally OK with what Israel has done in response to Hamas and now Hezbollah. Yet nowhere am I defending what Hamas or Hezbollah have done: absolutely not.

As I posted, Israel is fighting for their existence- that's why they don't want to stop at a stop-gap cease-fire because they never last long. Oct 7 broke one of those.

In a way, this is like a street fight- it starts with one against one and soon, the friends of one side join in before allies on the other join, if they even do. Israel has been fighting against what, five different enemies? The US really can't go there because it would be like dumping gallons of gasoline on a campfire.

 

[Trell]

Islam is an ideology that anyone can accept, if they're so inclined, and that's the reason calling it 'racism' is incorrect. The Middle East has been a mess of violence, dishonesty, illogic and hatred for 2000+ years and it's not going to end anytime soon, or by some short-lived agreement/cease-fire.

The support for Palestine is confusing to me since it has been adopted by people whose human rights would be ignored if they were to go to that part of the world- the ones I have seen interviewed know almost nothing about Islam, have only seen less than 20 years of, well, anything since they're mostly about that age- they live online and we all know that opinions are more important than facts, but as we see at AH, it's easier to ask questions than to do the actual searching.

That region has never been open to simple solutions and the last year has seen a lot of military violence from Israel, but the violence from Hamas/Hezbollah has often been more like terrorists and they can't be let off for killing civilians. What started this most recent conflict? Launching 4300 rockets with 364 killed at a music festival.

The link has more details and shows some of the points in the first few paragraphs that haven't been mentioned enough, IMO-

2023 Hamas-led attack on Israel - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Brandolini’s law

 

[highfigh]

It was targeted, loosely. The detonation of these devices did harm civilians and non combatants, therefore indiscriminate collateral damage was incurred.

This is part of the question I'm asking, whether it was reasonable or not?

In my mind, still, it is a step too far.

As above, I get it: war is hell and civilian casualties will occur.

This act just feels wrong to me and while I'm not losing sleep over it, I also have not been able to fully reconcile it.

The pagers were in the possession of members of Hezbollah, not civilians unless they happened to get their hands on them. That was a targeted attack on terrorists and as usual, those terrorists were surrounded by civilians. It woulf be impossible for Israel to get Hezbollah to go away from the civilians and if you look at the number of 'collateral' casualties, it was far less than the numbers killed by Hezbollah/Hamas attacks.

Booby traps are supposed to be avoided, but look at the CNN link, for info & photos of those kidnapped on Oct 7- then, think about what was done to many of the hostages.

https://www.cnn.com/2024/07/17/middleeast/hamas-israel-october-7-attack-human-rights-watch-report-mime-intl/index.html

WRT the Oct 7 attack, the link shows that 1139 were killed, including 695 civilians and 71 foreign nationals. Let's assume the latter were civilians, which means that 766 were killed out of 1139, making civilian casualties more than 67% of the total, compared with the two cyber attacks, which killed a total of 32, with 3450 injured. (from the BBC link below)

Hezbollah pagers and walkie-talkies: How did they explode and who did it?

The attacks left at least 32 dead and thousands injured, but how the blasts occurred remains unclear.

www.bbc.com

I'm not sure that anyone outside of the conflict can really reconcile it.

 

[highfigh]

There has long been a fault line between Jews/Christians and Muslims.

The date recognized as the beginning of Islam is 610 AD. The Jews and Christians kept the Holy Land a sacred space. However, Islam did practice forced conversions from inception and scattered the Jews throughout Europe.

Pope Benedict at Regensburg in 2006 quoted an address from the Holy Roman Emperor in 1391

"In his lecture, the Pope, speaking in German, quoted a passage about Islam made at the end of the 14th century by Byzantine (Eastern Roman) emperor Manuel II Palaiologos. The controversial comment originally appeared in the seventh of the 26 Dialogues Held with a Certain Persian, the Worthy Mouterizes, in Anakara of Galatia, written in 1391 as an expression of the views of Manuel II, one of the last Christian rulers before the Fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Empire in 1453, on such issues as forced conversion, holy war, and the relationship between faith and reason. The passage, in the English translation published by the Vatican, was:


In 1453 the Muslims sacked Constantinople and gave rise to the Ottoman Empire. This gave rise to the Crusades to try and claim back the Holy Land.

This led to a Christian/Muslim fault line across the Balkan States of Europe. Suliman the Magnificent even laid siege to Vienna in 1529.

The Ottomans sided with Germany in WW1 and were a big problem to the British in North Africa. This is the basis of the strange story of Lawrence of Arabia, enlisting with, and fighting with the Arabs against the Ottoman Turks in WW 1.

The Ottoman Empire finally wound up in the years immediately following WW1.

The fault lines in the modern Middle East were established by British Foreign secretary Arthur Balfour in 1917, which gave support for the establishment of the Jewish State. However Israel was not established until 1948 following WW II because of all the displaced Jews following the Nazi Pogroms. I think it is fair to say this was done without the consent or acquiescence of the Arab States.

So this fault line has continued since the founding of Islam is the seventh century AD

The Crusades began long before Constantinople- 1095.

The Muslims taking what they did was largely without consent- not sure Arab consent was really necessary.

 

[highfigh]

Just a couple nits to pick, Doc.

- The exile of Jews from Israel was initiated by the Romans, who were getting tired of putting down Jewish uprisings.
- There is nothing unique about forced conversions on the part of conquering Muslim invaders. Christianity isn't prominent amongst indigenous peoples of Africa and the Americas because they observed the religious practices of colonizers and thought, "Oooo, I'll have some of that!" And, it wasn't the Moors who forced Jews to convert - it was the Inquisition.
- The Crusades began centuries before the fall of Constantinople.

Let's not forget that Muslims conquered the Iberian Peninsula in the early 700s and while it wasn't as bloody for the 80+ years that followed, it wasn't by consent.

Yeah, the Inquisition- something else to be disgusted by, as a human.

 

[Trell]

Let's not forget that Muslims conquered the Iberian Peninsula in the early 700s and while it wasn't as bloody for the 80+ years that followed, it wasn't by consent.

Yeah, the Inquisition- something else to be disgusted by, as a human.

Yeah, the Inquisition: Done by the Catholic Church with a very long history of putting their peckers into children. When female children get pregnant they are left on their own.

 

[highfigh]

Yeah, the Inquisition: Done by the Catholic Church with a very long history of putting their peckers into children. When female children get pregnant they are left on their own.

Exactly!

"Clergy are to remain celebate"

What could go wrong?

We have seen some of it, but I would never believe we have seen the worst.

 

[jinjuku]

"Clergy are to remain celebate"

Anyone know why Clergy are now celibate, but didn't use to be?

 

[jinjuku]

Yeah, the Inquisition: Done by the Catholic Church with a very long history of putting their peckers into children. When female children get pregnant they are left on their own.

I'm not a fan of any religion... But tribalism has a lot to do with historical conflicts also.