The root of islamic fundamentalism - Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community

stevo · 07-20-2006, 01:28 PM

Many people feel the need to understand islamic terrorists and figure out why they feel the way they do. As this article will illustrate, its no different than trying to figure out why nazis feel the way they do.

Quote:

Caroline Glick, THE JERUSALEM POST

Jul. 14, 2005

Reacting to Neville Chamberlain's Munich Pact with Adolf Hitler in the British Parliament in October 1938, Winston Churchill warned, "You have to consider the character of the Nazi movement and the rule which it implies There can never be friendship between the British democracy and the Nazi power, that power which spurns Christian ethics, which cheers its onward course by a barbarous paganism, which vaunts the spirit of aggression and conquest, which derives strength and perverted pleasure from persecution, and uses, as we have seen, with pitiless brutality the threat of murderous force. That power can never be a trusted friend of British democracy."

With the outbreak of World War II one year later, Churchill's warning that Munich was "the beginning of the reckoning" with an implacable foe was of course proved correct.

In the week since last Thursday's attacks in London we have repeatedly heard the analogy between those bombings and the Nazi bombing war against Britain. Most of these analogies have to do with the famous British stiff upper lip in the face of terror and carnage. Some of these parallels relate to the determination enunciated by Queen Elizabeth and Prime Minister Tony Blair never to surrender to the forces behind the bombings. Indeed, in most cases, the analogies drawn between the two circumstances have to do with the British response to the attacks and not to the parallel nature of the perpetrators.

In truth though, just as the British stoicism recalls the same from 65 years ago, so too, there is a deep and instructive similarity between the Nazis and the Islamic-fascist forces that attacked then and attack today. The fact of the matter is that even more important than invoking the famous British "stiff upper lip," to fight this current war to victory requires understanding and accepting the similarities between the Nazis and the Arab-Islamic terrorist armies.

On Tuesday The Wall Street Journal published an investigative report into the establishment and growth of the Islamic Center in Munich. As Stefan Meining, a German historian who studies the mosque, told the paper, "If you want to understand the structure of political Islam, you have to look at what happened in Munich."

According to the report, the Munich mosque was founded by Muslim Nazis who had settled in West Germany after the war. These men, who were among more than one million citizens of the Soviet republics who joined the Nazis while they were under German occupation, were transferred by their Nazi commander to the Western front in the closing stages of the war to protect them from the advancing Red Army.

The Journal report explains that the first leader of the mosque was a native of Uzbekistan named Nurredin Nakibhidscha Namangani. Namangani served as an imam in the SS and participated in the liquidation of the Warsaw ghetto and the putting down of the Jewish uprising in 1943.

According to the article, the exiled head of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, Said Ramadan, participated in a 1958 conference organized by Namangani and his fellow Muslim Nazis to raise money to build the mosque.

The article then outlines the subsequent takeover of the mosque by the Muslim Brotherhood in the 1960s and its transformation, with Saudi and Syrian funding, into a nexus for the spread of Islamic-fascist ideology and its call for jihad and world domination.

Ignored by the report is that there was no particular reason, other than perhaps turf warfare, for the Nazis to have had a problem with the Muslim Brotherhood. As German political scientist Matthias Kuntzel chronicled in his work "Islamic anti-Semitism and its Nazi Roots," the Muslim Brotherhood, which spawned the PLO's Fatah as well as al-Qaida, Hamas and the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, owes much of its ideological success and pseudo-philosophical roots to Nazism.

In the 1930s, the mufti of Jerusalem, Amin el-Husseini, rigorously courted the Nazis. When, in 1936, he launched his terror war against the Jewish Yishuv in the British controlled Palestine Mandate, he repeatedly asked the Nazis for financial backing, which began arriving in 1937.

From 1936-39 Husseini's terror army murdered 415 Jews. In later years, Husseini noted that were it not for Nazi money, his onslaught would have been defeated in 1937. His movement was imbued with Nazism. His men saluted one another with Nazi salutes and members of his youth movement sported Hitler Youth uniforms.

Husseini was allied with the new Muslim Brotherhood movement that was founded by Ramadan's father-in-law, Hassan al-Banna, in the 1920s. The impact of his terror war on the movement was profound. From a 1936 membership roster of 800, by 1938 the ranks of the Brotherhood had risen to 200,000 official members backed by perhaps an equal number of active sympathizers.

As Kuntzel argues, the notion of a violent holy war or jihad against non-Muslims was not a part of any active Islamic doctrine until the 1930s and, as he notes, "its concurrence with the arrival of a newly virulent anti-Semitism is verified in no uncertain terms." Husseini's gangs in the Palestine Mandate were joyously praised by the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, which held mass demonstrations with slogans like "Jews get out of Egypt and Palestine," and "Down with the Jews!"

For the Nazis, the Jews were seen as the principal force preventing them from achieving their goal of world domination. As Hitler put it, "You will see how little time we shall need in order to upset the ideas and the criteria for the whole world, simply and purely by attacking Judaism." In his view, once he destroyed the Jews, the rest of the world would lay before him for the taking. "The struggle for world domination will be fought entirely between Germans and Jews. All else is facade and illusion," he said.

Husseini, who became an active Nazi agent – fomenting a pro-Nazi coup in Baghdad in 1942 and then fleeing to Germany where he spent the rest of the war training a jihad army of Bosnian Muslims; exhorting the Arab world to rise up against the Allies; participating in the Holocaust and planning an Auschwitz-like death camp to be built in Nablus after the German victory – escaped with French assistance to Cairo after the war. There he was embraced as a war hero.

Hitler's obsession with the Jews as the source of all the evils in the world became so ingrained in both the Arab nationalist and Islamic psyche that it has become second nature.

At the 2002 trial in Germany of Mounir el-Moutassadeq, who was accused of collaborating with the September 11 hijackers, witnesses described the world view of Muhammad Atta who led the attackers. One witness claimed, "Atta's [world view] was based on a National Socialist way of thinking. He was convinced that 'the Jews' are determined to achieve world domination. He considered New York City to be the center of world Jewry, which was, in his opinion, Enemy Number One."

In light of the wealth of historical documentation of the Nazi roots of Islamic fascism, it is absolutely apparent that the collaboration between Nazis and the Muslim Brotherhood in the building and developing of the Islamic Center in Munich was anything but coincidental or unique.

It is also hardly surprising that PA chieftain Mahmoud Abbas, whose predecessor, Yasser Arafat, was Husseini's follower, devoted his doctoral dissertation to a denial of the Holocaust and a justification of Nazism.

The thing of it is, just as with the Nazis, it is impossible to separate the Islamist ideological and military quest for world domination from its genocidal anti-Semitism. As with the Nazis, they are two sides of the same coin. And, just as was the case from the Nazi ascent to power in 1933 through the end of World War II, the British and, to a lesser though increasing degree, the Americans refuse to acknowledge that the war against the Jews and Israel is the same as the war against them.

There are reasons for the attempts to separate the inseparable. The discovery that the London bombers were flowers of British immigrant youth – like the British-Pakistani al-Qaida-Hamas terror cell that committed the suicide bombing at Mike's Place in Tel-Aviv in April 2003, and Omar Sheikh, the British-Pakistani al-Qaida terrorist who kidnapped and murdered Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl in a Nazi-style execution in January 2002 – shows that the enemy today is largely homegrown.

One of the most difficult challenges for a democratic society is facing up to the presence of an enemy fifth column in its midst. Aside from this, the fact of the matter is that the global economy is fueled by oil, which is controlled by the same forces that stand at the foundations of the current war against the Jews and Western civilization.

Much easier than contending with these realities is to engage in the politics of denial. As the British and French blamed German anti-Semitism and warmongering in the 1930s on their impoverishment and humiliation by the Treaty of Versailles, so too, the British, like their European allies and large swathes of American society,, blame Arab and Islamic anti-Semitism and aspirations for global domination on poverty and perceived humiliation at the hands of Western imperialists and by the establishment and continued viability of the State of Israel.

It is the duty of the State of Israel (much ignored by its own leadership today) to point out this inconvenient reality to the rest of the world. And it is the duty and responsibility of all who treasure freedom and the right to live without fear to accept this reality in spite of its inconvenience. Refusing to do so is not simply a matter of cowardice. It is a recipe for suicide.

No that we know the root of it all we can stop asking why and start doing something about it.

hiredgun · 07-20-2006, 06:29 PM

So. Now that we know that Muslims are actually no better than Nazis, let's do something about it, shall we?

Do you have something to discuss here?

Willravel · 07-20-2006, 06:40 PM

Actually Islamic fundamentalism comes from the same places as Christian fundamentalism, Jewish fundamentalism, Darwinist fundamentalism, and, yes, even Buddhist fundamentalism. Some people are introduced to a religion and it's teachings, but instead of learning the moral and ethical lessons to help them in life, they decide to nit pick it to the point of madness and then lord it over other people (no pun intended). Sometimes, they meet with others who have made the same mistake, then we have a problem. When you have a large group think lead by the most fundamental of the fundamentalists, then you have the dangerous religous oranizations that bomb Israeli markets or abortion clinics.

What's it called when someone eventually makes a comparison to Hitler of Nazis in an argument? Oh, right, Godwin's law. I've been accoused of using it so often, I almost forgot.

soccerchamp76 · 07-20-2006, 07:31 PM

I have begun reading the Koran in an attempt to understand where the Muslims are coming from. As an atheist, my reading is trickly for informational purposes and I can read it from an objective point-of-view. I am approximately 150 pages into it currently.

Before it I read "End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason" which discusses Islam and terrorists, citing the Koran several times.

In the Koran, "unbelievers" or, non-Muslims, are banished to eternal hell and punishment and aren't even allowed to be friends with Muslims. They are, however, said not to attack first, but if provoked, you must be willing to die for your God and dying for Allah is the greatest thing.

Willravel · 07-20-2006, 07:52 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by soccerchamp76

I have begun reading the Koran in an attempt to understand where the Muslims are coming from. As an atheist, my reading is trickly for informational purposes and I can read it from an objective point-of-view. I am approximately 150 pages into it currently.

Before it I read "End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason" which discusses Islam and terrorists, citing the Koran several times.

In the Koran, "unbelievers" or, non-Muslims, are banished to eternal hell and punishment and aren't even allowed to be friends with Muslims. They are, however, said not to attack first, but if provoked, you must be willing to die for your God and dying for Allah is the greatest thing.

In the Bible, Muslims and Jews burn in hell, too. That's why I prefer Darwin's "Orgin of Species".

Meanwhile, this is a rather simple thing. Racism is still a part of society, and can manifest itself in acts of hate. There are still people out there that will hate you simply because of your skin color, who you date, and yes, even who you do or don't worship. I really don't know why this is always made out to be so complicated.

matthew330 · 07-20-2006, 07:56 PM

Can you honestly not see a distinction between the Islamic fundamentalism bred in the Arab world and beyond, and Christian fundamentalism? I think the others you mentioned were just a vain attempt to sound unbiased.

Exactly what Christian organization planned, encouraged, and tought individuals to bomb, what, 3 abortion clinics 10years ago?....and continues this madness today? And why is it when these events happen the left reacts with blood boiling hatred that hasn't subsided in 10 years, but when Islamic fundamentalism rears it's ugly head the lefts reaction is to put it in the context of relgious fundamentalism in general?

I seriously don't get it.

the other two posts came just before this....so correction:

Why is it that when Islamic fundamentalism kills, the lefts reaction is to pick up the Koran and study.

Willravel · 07-20-2006, 08:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by matthew330

Can you honestly not see a distinction between the Islamic fundamentalism bred in the Arab world and beyond, and Christian fundamentalism? I think the others you mentioned were just a vain attempt to sound unbiased.

I happen to know that there are just as many idiots in religion A as there are in religion B. I've meet the worst from all sides. Vain, indeed. If the Middle East were covered in suburbia, and had been founded by puritans, then I suspect that it might look a bit like....well you get the idea. Circumstances beyond religous texts have lead to the curent situation in the Middle East, you know.

This thread is clearly a big old fat flame bait. "Group X is just like the Nazis....discuss!!" I was simply trying to generalize to save the thing from being closed. We've already had our little wars in politics about Muslim extreemists. I was posting in one just earlier.

soccerchamp76 · 07-20-2006, 08:13 PM

First off, I am conservative, not liberal.

Second, I have already read the Old and New Testament so I have the Jews and Christians covered.

I do understand why fundamentalism is wrong [i.e. Deuteronomy], but I wanted to know the motivation behind the hatred.

Violence in the name of religion, when looked at objectively, is ridiculously asinine. Without reducing your argument to politics, the reason that Christian fundamentalism isn't viewed the same way is quite obvious. Pick up any piece of currency you own and read what it says on there. What do you swear on when you testify in court? Bingo

Willravel · 07-20-2006, 08:15 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by matthew330

the other two posts came just before this....so correction:

Why is it that when Islamic fundamentalism kills, the lefts reaction is to pick up the Koran and study.

I didn't study the Qu'ran because of terrorism. I read it because it is a relevent religous text. It really is an amazing book. I would suggest you read it, but I don't think you'd want to.

My direct reaction to terrorism is to try to find a solution. Killing people is wrong. They should be stopped. Of course, reading a book isn't going to make you kill anyone, so blaming a religon is kinda silly. It's the people that screw up religion, not the religion that screws up the people.... which leads me to try and answer soccer's question. What is the motivation behind the hatred? Well that's both complicated and simple. The simple answer is the same answer to questions like, "Why are people racist?" or, "Why does my big brother hit me?", or "Why does Matthew330 seemingly oppose my every political view? (just kidding of course)". Human nature. There is always the temptation to ignore what you think is right because you are tempted to do something against your better judgment. Why do little kids try to sneak cookies? They think they can get away with it and they think that the reward is worth more than their morality. Then there is the complicated answer:

Hostility between Jews and Arabs (not muslims quite yet) goes back to the bilbical times - think Abraham. Abraham's sons, Isaac andf Ishmael, had a slightly different upbringing. Isaac was the successor to Abrahams great biblical stuff (God's promises), and Ishmael was kicked to the curb. Ishmael got jelous and treated Isaac like crap, and so he was sent away. At least that's how the Bible tells it. The Qu'ran says that Ishmael was actually the chosen son, and that Ishmael, not Isaac was almost sacraficed to God. This was like 4000 years ago, and things haven't gotten any better. Do you remember the Hatfields and the McCoys? The two families had fought so long, that they had forgotten what they have been fighting about. Likewise between the Arabs and Jews. Neeways, back to the story. Enter the UN. After WWII, the UN decided that they had the right to carve up Palestine so that the Jews could live there. The Arabs naturally got pissed. They overreacted and tried to destroy Israel and got their asses handed to them. Fastforward to today. The combination of ancient racism based on a biblical mixup, and current animosity from the land grab...and you have a volitile situation.

matthew330 · 07-20-2006, 08:28 PM

"I've met the worst from all sides."

It's entirely possible you've met the worst of western religious fundamentalism, after all you live where they do and still feel comfortable bad mouthing them. I doubt you've met the worst of the Islamic fundamentalists and if you lived where they did I doubt you'd feel comfortable doing the same.

And I don't think this post was flamebait. After all the first sentece was...

"Many people feel the need to understand islamic terrorists and figure out why they feel the way they do." and by post #4 soccerchamp was already quoting the Koran. Stevo apparently had a point.

soccerchamp76 · 07-20-2006, 08:32 PM

Comparing the rationalization's of the Nazi's and the Muslim's is comparing apples and oranges.

It IS possible to know the root of fundamentalism, and in fact, most people do know why. Knowing isn't the battle, it is convincing the fundamentalists that it isn't prudent to be doing what they are doing.

Willravel · 07-20-2006, 08:38 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by matthew330

"I've met the worst from all sides."

It's entirely possible you've met the worst of western religious fundamentalism, after all you live where they do and still feel comfortable bad mouthing them. I doubt you've met the worst of the Islamic fundamentalists and if you lived where they did I doubt you'd feel comfortable doing the same.

I've been to the Middle East 4 times since I was born, and once within the last 3 years. I've been to Israel, Lebanon, Syria, and Egypt (thanks to a local church that was sending "missions" to the Middle East). I also have really good friends currently living in Iraq. The christian fundamentalists in the US haven't been at war on and off for the last 4000 years. There was the crusades a while back, but that was nothing compared to the Middle East. If I were in Tehran, I would not speak of Muslims the same way I speak of Christians in the US. Of course, I'm only talking about the radicals. I have no gripe with regular Christians, Muslims, Jews, Hindus, or anyone else.

matthew330 · 07-20-2006, 09:05 PM

"Deuteronomy"...hehe, that word just makes me giggle.

stevo · 07-21-2006, 05:29 AM

will, I'm not comparing nazis to islamo-facists - I'm trying to show that the two are historically linked. there's a difference. Its not goodwin's law.

Quote:

Originally Posted by willravel

Hostility between Jews and Arabs (not muslims quite yet) goes back to the bilbical times - think Abraham. Abraham's sons, Isaac andf Ishmael, had a slightly different upbringing. Isaac was the successor to Abrahams great biblical stuff (God's promises), and Ishmael was kicked to the curb. Ishmael got jelous and treated Isaac like crap, and so he was sent away. At least that's how the Bible tells it. The Qu'ran says that Ishmael was actually the chosen son, and that Ishmael, not Isaac was almost sacraficed to God. This was like 4000 years ago, and things haven't gotten any better. Do you remember the Hatfields and the McCoys? The two families had fought so long, that they had forgotten what they have been fighting about. Likewise between the Arabs and Jews. Neeways, back to the story. Enter the UN. After WWII, the UN decided that they had the right to carve up Palestine so that the Jews could live there. The Arabs naturally got pissed. They overreacted and tried to destroy Israel and got their asses handed to them. Fastforward to today. The combination of ancient racism based on a biblical mixup, and current animosity from the land grab...and you have a volitile situation.

Druing the ottoman empire, while jews and christians were not first-class citizens, they peacefully lived side by side with muslims. It was not until the 1920s when real anti-semitism began and peaked roughly 20 years later. You also over simplify things when you say the UN decided to carve up palestine and make an israeli state. After the fall of the ottoman turks in WW1 the league of nations gave the UK its mandate for palestine (1922). THere was no lebanon, israel, jordan, gaza or west bank. the british promised the arabs an independent state covering *most* of palestine and promised a jewish state in israel (balfour delcaration 1917). during the 1920's there was a strong jewish migration from europe to palestine.

Enter Mohammad Amin al-Husayni, the mufti of jerusalem. After the ottoman defeat (who he fought with in WW1) he denounced the balfour declaration and worked on getting jews out of palestine and creating a pan-islamic state. he incited violence between arabs and jews, unlike any that had been seen before. he worked towards his mission and eventually allied with the Nazis in ww2, thats when his anti-semetism spread throughout the muslim world into the balkans and into russia. I'd like to point out part of the article I previously posted

Quote:

As Kuntzel argues, the notion of a violent holy war or jihad against non-Muslims was not a part of any active Islamic doctrine until the 1930s and, as he notes, "its concurrence with the arrival of a newly virulent anti-Semitism is verified in no uncertain terms." Husseini's gangs in the Palestine Mandate were joyously praised by the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, which held mass demonstrations with slogans like "Jews get out of Egypt and Palestine," and "Down with the Jews!"

. The successor of the mufti was none other than yasser arafat. Its a pretty straight line.

The muslim fundamentalism we see today stems from anti-semetism started in the 1920s. Jihad against non-believers is a creation from the 1930's. While today's islamofacists might not be nazis their indoctrination of the "evils of jewry" come from ideas and motives planted in the early part of the 20th century.

You can also see, that its not the UN who decided to create israel. some can argue the modern state of israel was conceived in 1917 and encouraged by the league of nations in 1922. keep in mind jordan and lebanon did not exist then either. Jordan and lebanon are as much creations as israel. If israel doesn't have a right to exist, then I don't see how jordan, lebanon, syria, or any of the post-ottoman territories do.

Also, this thread was not started as flamebait, but to try and show that the modern islamic fundamentalist movement enforced by terrorism grew alongside nazism and the father of modern anti-semetism is none other than yasser arafat's predecessor.

The palestinian struggle is not about vicitmization from the israelis. its victimization from the entire region. The palestinians are nothing more than a pawn in the islamists desire to see the state of israel vanish. If this was really about the palestinian plight and arabs really cared about their palestinian bretheren there would have been a solution years ago.

roachboy · 07-21-2006, 07:40 AM

i am surprised that the op happened.

but i suppose the present degenerate ideological climate is such that the simple reproduction of rightwing israeli propaganda as if it constituted a factual piece that explains not only the present situation, but islam etc. has to be expected.

the context for thinking about such drivel is not historical--the article has little to do with history--but rather patterns of ideologically driven coverage of the present conflict.

there are resources that you could look at, were you to want to shake yourself a bit and begin, possibly, trying to think for yourself.

this piece gives something of a starting point---it provides a way to begin thinking about rhetoric patterns like you see running all through the op.

in general, i would suggest looking at a site like electronic intifada's "patterns of media coverage" section.:

http://electronicintifada.net/v2/coveragetrends.shtml

while you're at it, check out information concerning the organization: who these folk are, where they are. read some of the articles posted--they come from a range of political positions. in ei and other more interesting media outlets, there is a degree of transparency--you know what an editorial is (like the op article) for example--you can tell pretty easily where the writers position themselves politically (you dont have the fradulent voice of "objectivity" lke you have in the op)--and the articles do not assume total ignorance of history and present reality in the way that the post article does.

Quote:

Dovetailing violence
Zachary Wales, The Electronic Intifada, 21 July 2006

The views surrounding Israel's violent return to Lebanon are as variable as the civilian death toll, which now rivals that of the recent Indonesian tsunami -- with a wildly lopsided burden on the Lebanese side, of course. Indeed, history holds no punches when repeating itself, particularly when it is dictated by the same actors, human or nature. Just as Indonesia's victims could have benefited from an early warning system, so too could the victims of this conflict, on either side of the Lebanese border.

The difference, however, is that no one advocates for the continuation of the tsunami disaster. Condoleezza Rice has not called for a cessation of Indonesian humanitarian efforts in hopes that another surge will finish things off. Hillary Clinton is not standing before throngs of xenophobic Australian-Americans, vowing to stop illegal Southeast Asian immigrants.

More explicitly in Israel, the right-wing YnetNews.com ran an opinion piece that read: "Studies of conflicts in Africa have shown that even when a government adopted a policy of genocide against a minority, other armed groups continued to fight the army." The gist of the article, by Dov Tamari, was that Israel needed to apply more force than it is already using. These sentiments were echoed yesterday by the US ambassador to the United Nations, who said, "no one has explained how you conduct the cease-fire with a group of terrorists." But Tamari's quote, taken in the context of his article, implied that groups like Hezbollah and Hamas were in the "other armed groups" category. In doing so Tamari missed, or perhaps was completely conscious of the reverse implication -- that Israel is the genocidaire -- and found nothing wrong with it.

Crass this inference may be, but it would not be the first of its kind voiced by Israeli pundits or leaders. During Israel's original misadventure in Lebanon, Raphael Eitan, Chief of Staff of the so called Israeli Defence Forces (IDF), told the New York Times, "When we have settled the land, all the Arabs will be able to do about it will be to scurry around like drugged cockroaches in a bottle." This statement, frighteningly reminiscent of Rwanda's Interahamwe advocates, dovetails on previous, more belligerent and careless affirmations, like Prime Minister Golda Maeir's assertion that Palestinians do not exist (1969), or that of Chairman Heilbrun of the Committee for the Re-election of Tel Aviv Mayor Shlomo Lahat, who said in 1983, "We have to kill all the Palestinians unless they are resigned to live here as slaves."

These words, however indicting, crude or inhumane, do not necessarily warrant the most concern. Like similar such quotes from some Hezbollah extremists, they hail from a realm of intellectual poverty, hatred and from the most unimaginative strain of racism. What is more concerning are those who purport to represent a liberal pacifist left, but who exploit catastrophes to advance subtle agendas; those who recoil at the words of Likud party hawks, then meet them for lunch an hour later.

If the name Yossi Beilin comes to mind, then read no further.

If not, know that at the outset of the current invasion of Lebanon, former Israeli minister Beilin, hailed by the New York-based Forward as "Israel's consistently most thoughtful and inadequately appreciated, political leader," authored a commentary in Ha'aretz that bemoaned "the weakness of the American partner" in "moving things in the area". The article was passed enthusiastically around liberal US policy circles, presumably because it criticized George W. Bush's administration, and overtly because Beilin pleaded for an end to the crisis.

Calling for a cessation of violence is noble, and it plucks the chords of liberal benevolence in much the way that "spreading freedom and democracy" sugar coats neoconservative campaigns in Iraq, Guantanamo Bay and elsewhere. Onward march these ideologues, leaving their tackle boxes behind.

A closer look at Beilin's journalistic analysis and personal track record invokes doubt in those who are more self-aware. The first flag-raising issue is Beilin's litany of past instances when the United States intervened in regional affairs. A striking pattern is readily apparent: Each of Beilin's examples marks a chapter in which Israel secured and expanded its colonial advancements in the Middle East, which, since the dawn of Zionism, has been the root of Arab-Israeli conflicts -- present one included.

In his recent article, Beilin waxes nostalgic on the 1973 Yom Kippur War, in which Henry Kissinger -- hardly distinguished among Western liberals and a war criminal by legal standards -- airlifted military hardware to help Israel defend its colonial settlements in the Golan Heights and Sinai, which it illegally occupied in 1967. He then wistfully recalls the 1978 Camp David accords, in which President Jimmy Carter catered to Israeli demands to maintain and expand settlements, and sign away the "legitimate rights" of Palestinians, who were never invited to these talks in the first place. (A highlight of the Camp David events was when Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin objected to "a strange and unknown flag" upon seeing that his Egyptian hosts had included a Palestinian flag among the multi-national décor.)

Beilin then praises President Ronald Reagan's contribution to the July 1981 ceasefire between Israel and the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), in which US envoy Philip Habib was sent to serve Israel's interests peacefully: expelling the PLO leadership from Lebanon. Earlier that month, Israel had leveled an entire neighborhood in Beirut, and the United States only intervened because it was "[a]ppalled at the indiscriminate loss of life," to borrow the words of former US undersecretary George Ball. In other words, Israel was not keeping the agenda palatable enough. The success of that intervention was apparent one year later, when Israeli Defense Minister Ariel Sharon oversaw the massacre of thousands in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps. (Beilin's article doesn't talk about the massacres, but it mentions, in parentheses, the Begin-Sharon decision to launch the "Lebanon War".)

Our pundit then moves to the Madrid conference of 1991, where, in an effort to appease Arab countries over the invasion of Iraq, Bush Sr. decided to do something about Palestinians. But in Camp David fashion, the PLO was not invited to this one. This came at the behest of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, who would later announce that his strategy was to drag out negotiations for ten years so that the annexation of the West Bank would be an accomplished fact.

And accomplished it nearly was, thanks to the Oslo Accords, which are the next reference in Beilin's commentary. Under these terms, Palestinians were given the indefinite promise of an undetermined "final status" in exchange for Israel's green light to expand its colonial settlements more quickly than it had at any other time in history. A snapshot: In 1997, the hawkish Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu authorized the construction of 1,160 illegal housing units, while the "liberal" Prime Minister Ehud Barak endorsed another 1,924 units -- it's little wonder why the second Intifada broke out.

This brings to mind another matter that Beilin's article does not mention. In late January 1997, Netanyahu's plan to cede as little land as possible to the Palestinians was given a further boost with the publication of the "National Agreement Regarding the Negotiations on the Permanent Settlement with the Palestinians", which Beilin co-authored. In short, the document called for a return to the Allon Plan of 1967, which proposed the annexation of some 40 percent of the West Bank and half the Gaza Strip. The framework also awarded extensive protections to Israel's colonial settlers in Palestinian territory.

The above examples require perhaps too deep a reading for the casual observer of Israeli affairs. But this is not to suggest that one has to read that deeply. Earlier this year, Israel's Meretz party ran under the slogan, "I don't have an Arab mother", which was advertised as a quote from the party's chairman, Yossi Beilin.

Still, Beilin finds ways to reach his liberal American audience. Last Sunday, his advisor, Yonatan Toval, emailed US listserves, saying, "We thought you might be interested in reading a piece which Yossi published last week in the Israeli daily Ha'aretz on the unfortunate absence of the U.S. in the current conflict."

Contraire, Mr. Toval, you have America's backing in spades. It's unfortunate they have to make such an eyesore of it.

read critically, folks.
get to know something of what is actually going on in the region.
that way, you are less likely to be tricked by jingoistic horseshit.

stevo · 07-21-2006, 08:38 AM

roach, your omission of anything pre-1967 is obvious. Are you denying the facts as I have presented them?

Charlatan · 07-21-2006, 09:00 AM

Reading both the OP and roach's post above underscores just how complicated the whole situation is. You can't easily dismiss either account. Both sides are culpable.

Yes, in this current conflict, Hezbollah "started it". Israel is justified in engaging Hezbollah. But you cannot look at just this isolated incident (as much as some would).

There will never be a solution that involves military action (not a lasting solution).

roachboy · 07-21-2006, 09:11 AM

what facts?
and what is with your identification with caroline glick? she presented "information"---and you did not present anything here-----you bit an editorial from the jerusalem post and pasted it without any information even about the type of article it is. there are certain basic rules about handling information--one is that you should be up front about the type of informatino that you are presenting.

if i did not kind of know you through tfp i would wonder about your motives---in this case i just think that you want to see information like this and because you want to see it you overlooked the nature of the information. this happens to all of us--i am not outside this problem either---since it is structural, one way of dealing with it is to be consistent about noting the type of article it is.

i think that all of us--yourself included--are usually pretty good about this, but not always, and this is such a situation.

once your erased the status of the article, you then operated as though the editorial was self-evidently a sequence of statements of fact.
it isn't.
it is a polemical piece through and through.

if you want to have a discussion about the history of the conflicts between the israelis and palestinians and how they impact on the present carnage, start with getting decent sources to use as a points of departure. something closer to a history, with source material that can be checked. the basic kind of thing that one should be able to expect if that is the discussion that you want.

the article you posts is not such a point of departure.
it may serve to reinforce your predispositions---in which case maybe a better name for the thread would be "an article that i like because it says what i want to read" rather than what is there.

there is no debate about this. find better sources, present something like an actual history and maybe we can have a discussion.
but not in this thread unless the information base changes.

by the way, i hope i am not wrong in assuming that folk here are concerned about quality of information---for example i read trotskyist papers because i find them quaint--but i would not post editorials from a trot paper here and take out information about the type of article or the politics of the source. if i did that i would expect to be laughed at. the same assumptions should obtain for conservatives.

stevo · 07-21-2006, 09:35 AM

I did not erase anything from the article. I thought it was obvious that it was an opinion piece. I will work on finding more-historical pieces, although I am moving this weekend, so it may not be until next week sometime. Until then we can put this thread on hold if you wish.

roachboy · 07-21-2006, 09:40 AM

aside: good luck with moving----i am still weathering the teacuptempest moving engendered for me.

i'll wait on you to post other material, if you want to move into another type of discussion with me at least. that way you can keep the analyses consistent with your general viewpoint--if i were to do anything, i'd probably change the base on you and things would perhaps not work out as well.

no need for anything here, so far as i am concerned---the other discussion would be interesting and i look forward to it.

host · 07-21-2006, 11:21 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by stevo

roach, your omission of anything pre-1967 is obvious. Are you denying the facts as I have presented them?

stevo, as Charlatan posted,

Quote:

Originally Posted by Charlatan

Yes, in this current conflict, Hezbollah "started it". Israel is justified in engaging Hezbollah. But you cannot look at just this isolated incident (as much as some would).

stevo, all of the following information is "pre-1967".
If you disagree with any of it, you can edit it, within the guidlines of the Wiki
non-biased POV policies. I cannot imagine offering you a more reasonable set
of sources to support my opinion that Israel has no claim to justify resorting to violence against others in the M.E. region, than others have to justify resorting to violence against Israel.

The first article excerpt, stevo, documents the fact that a founding Zionist, living in Palestine, concluded in 1923 that the "solution" was to"impose the Jewish presence on the Arabs by force of arms until eventually they came to accept it".

The rest of the documentation includes a description of LEHI, aka the "Stern Gang", and support for the idea that both Shamir and Begin were terrorists who received amnesty, then integrated with their "band" into the IDF, and then both were later elected as prime ministers of Israel.

Their history and activities seem no different in their methods and reputations than the militant wings of Hamas or Hezbollah, including their transformations from terrorists to political leaders, complete with the support of their respective electorates, eeirily reminiscent of the transformations of LEHI leaders Shamir and Begin from terrorist to political leaders, via votes received by their political parties.

Begin was denounced in 1948 in a letter to the NY Times, signed by Albert Einstein, that compared Begin's "politics and methods" to those of "Nazis and fascist parties".

stevo, why is it so important to you to seperate "islamic terrorists" from all other factions who choose violent methods of expression to achieve a variety of political goals? It seems simplistic, inaccurate, and prejudiced. Why not adopt a policy of equal condemnation of all who resort to attempted imposition of their physical will to dominate and control their opposition?

Quote:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zionism
Zionism is a political movement and ideology that supports a homeland for the Jewish people in the Land of Israel, where the Jewish nation originated over 3,200 years ago and where Jewish kingdoms and self-governing states existed up to the 2nd century.......

......To take an example, the leader of the Revisionist Zionists, Vladimir Jabotinsky, is often presented as having had an extreme pro-expulsion view but the proofs offered for this are rather thin. According to Jabotinsky's Iron Wall (1923), an agreement with the Arabs was impossible, since they

look upon Palestine with the same instinctive love and true fervor that any Aztec looked upon his Mexico or any Sioux looked upon his prairie. To think that the Arabs will voluntarily consent to the realization of Zionism in return for the cultural and economic benefits we can bestow on them is infantile.

The solution, according to Jabotinsky, was not expulsion (which he was "prepared to swear, for us and our descendants, that we will never [do]") but to impose the Jewish presence on the Arabs by force of arms until eventually they came to accept it. Only late in his life did Jabotinsky speak of the desirability of Arab emigration though still without unequivocally advocating an expulsion policy.........

Quote:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lehi_%28group%29
Lehi (IPA: ['lɛxi], Hebrew acronym for Lohamei Herut Israel, "Fighters for the Freedom of Israel",....was an armed underground Zionist faction in pre-state Israel (British Palestine) that had as its goal the eviction of the British from Palestine to allow unrestricted immigration of Jews and the formation of a Jewish state.

British authorities called the group the Stern Gang (named after its first commander, Avraham Stern), a label that persists in historical accounts.

.....Justification of terrorism

An article titled "Terror" in He Khazit (The Front, a Lehi underground newspaper), Issue 2, August 1943, argued as follows. The full text of the article is available at Wikiquote.

Neither Jewish morality nor Jewish tradition can negate the use of terror as a means of battle.
...
We are quite far from moral hesitations on the national battlefield. We see before us the command of the Torah, the most moral teaching in the world: Obliterate - until destruction.[1] We are particularly far from this sort of hesitation in regard to an enemy whose moral perversion is admitted by all.
But primarily terror is part of our political battle under present conditions and its role is large and great..........

Quote:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yitzhak_Shamir
.....In 1941 Shamir was imprisoned by British authorities. After Stern was killed by the British in 1942, Shamir escaped from the detention camp and became one of the three leaders of the group in 1943, reforming it as "Lehi". During his tenure, the Lehi was responsible for the 1944 assassination of Britain's minister of state for the Middle East, Lord Moyne; an assassination attempt against Harold MacMichael, the High Commissioner of the British Mandate of Palestine in the same year (Kushner, 2002, p. 348), and in 1948 the assassination of the United Nations representative in the Middle East, Count Folke Bernadotte who, although he had secured the release of 21,000 prisoners from German camps during World War II, was seen by Shamir and his collaborators as an anti-Zionist and "an obvious agent of the British enemy" (Gazi, 2002, p. 32).......

Quote:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Menachem_Begin
......Begin issued a call to arms and from 1945-1948 the Irgun launched an all-out armed rebellion, perpetrating hundreds of attacks against British installations and posts. For several months in 1945-1946, the Irgun’s activities were coordinated within the framework of the Hebrew Resistance Movement under the direction of the Haganah, however this fragile partnership collapsed following the Irgun’s bombing of the British administrative and military headquarters at the luxurious King David Hotel in Jerusalem, killing 91 people, including British officers and troops as well as Arab and Jewish civilians. The Irgun under Begin’s leadership continued to carry out military operations such as the break in to Acre Prison, and the hanging of two British sergeants, causing the British to suspend any further executions of Irgun prisoners. Growing numbers of British forces were deployed to quell the Jewish uprising, yet Begin managed to elude captivity, at times disguised as a Rabbi.........

.....Altalena and the War of Independence

As the Israeli War of Independence broke, Irgun fighters joined forces with the Haganah and Lehi militia in fighting the Arab forces. Notable operations in which they took part were the battles of Jaffa, Haifa, and the Jordanian siege on the Jewish Quarter in the Old City of Jerusalem. One such operation in the Palestinian village of Deir Yassin in April 1948, which resulted in the death of more than a hundred Palestinian civilians, remains a source of controversy. Some have accused the Jewish forces of committing war crimes, while others hold those were legitimate acts of warfare, however it is generally accepted that the Irgun and Lehi forces who took part in the attack carried out a brutal assault upon what was predominantly a civilian population. As the Irgun’s leader, Begin has been accused of being responsible for the atrocities that had allegedly taken place, even though he did not partake in them.

Quote:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revisionist_Zionism
.....The national-messianist movement, called Lehi and nicknamed the "Stern Gang" by the British, was led by Avraham "Yair" Stern. Lehi was founded by Stern in 1940 as an offshoot from Irgun, and was initially named Irgun Zvai Leumi be-Yisrael (National Military Organization in Israel or NMO). The group openly described itself as terrorist. Following Stern's death in 1942—killed under disputed circumstances by British police—and the arrest of many of its members, the group went into eclipse until it was reformed as "Lehi" under a triumvirate of Israel Eldad, Natan Yellin-Mor, and Yitzhak Shamir. Shamir became the Prime Minister of Israel forty years later.........

.....On December 4, 1948, the New York Times published a letter to the editor signed by over two dozen prominent Jews condemning Menachem Begin and his Herut party on the occasion of Begin's visit to New York City.

Comparing Revisionist Zionism streams to "Nazi and fascist parties", the letter was signed by individuals like Albert Einstein and the anti-Zionists Hannah Arendt and Sidney Hook. The letter began:

Among the most disturbing political phenomena of our times is the emergence in the newly created state of Israel of the “Freedom Party” (Tnuat Haherut), a political party closely akin in its organization, methods, political philosophy and social appeal to the Nazi and Fascist parties. It was formed out of the membership and following of the former Irgun Zvai Leumi, a terrorist, right-wing, chauvinist organization in Palestine.

The current visit of Menachem Begin, leader of this party, to the United States is obviously calculated to give the impression of American support for his party in the coming Israeli elections, and to cement political ties with conservative Zionist elements in the United States. Several Americans of national repute have lent their names to welcome his visit. It is inconceivable that those who oppose fascism throughout the world, if correctly informed as to Mr. Begin’s political record and perspectives, could add their names and support to the movement he represents. (source: NY Times, December 4, 1948).[2] ........

ubertuber · 07-21-2006, 01:15 PM

Even if one was to stipulate stevo's point (that Islamic fundamentalism is tied in its roots to Naziism), this is merely of academic interest in present times. To only ask "where did fundamentalism come from" is to ignore the present. You also have to ask why people today subscribe to the more asocial variants of fundamentalism - I bet the answer from the youngsters blowing themselves up won't have anything to do with the Nazis. Off the top of my head, I bet they have a lot more to do with economic realities and political climate. The answer to my question also begins to hint at what we could do to curtail the violent fundamentalist sects.

When I think that we should try to understand people we treat as enemies, this is what I'm talking about - not merely some historical point which doesn't directly influence the current crop of people.

Seaver · 07-21-2006, 01:55 PM

Quote:

They are, however, said not to attack first, but if provoked, you must be willing to die for your God and dying for Allah is the greatest thing.

Actually Muhammed himself receives messages from God saying it's ok to attack first. Hense why it was ok for them to attack the Byzantine Empire while they were allied with most of the tribes. The rule set was to convert, by converting they must set out the superiority of Islam, to do that they must militarily defeat them.

And Stevo, there are correlations between the Nazis and Islamofacists. However there were very few actually allied with Hitler, and that was a means to an end in order to kick England out of Egypt. None of their writing stated direct hatred of perticular groups until after the war. They instead stole pieces of social constructions from the Nazis (who stole many from us).

Things like the Green Shirts and Young Egypt reflected directly the Brown Shirts and Hitler Youth (the names themselves give validity to this), which were stolen directly from the Boy Scouts.

This logic of one begetting the other, however, is false. Because we started the Boy Scouts, one can not hold us responsible for the Hitler Youth or Brown Shirts. One can simply provide evidence of Islamic Fundamentalism predating Hitler by over a thousand years. The father of Sala'hadinn (Saladin) studied religion greatly and developed the first term for Jihad as an external struggle (until this time it was purely internal). In his writings he wrote down the first statements which would lay the roots of the Islamofacism.

This redeveloped at the decline of the Ottoman Turk Empire as the Islamic world found their merchantile and technological lead extremely quickly deteriorate. Islamofacism developed out of methods to justify defeats their military and society suffered, provided by the evaporation of the fundamentalism writings after the recovery of Jerusalem and the victories over the Crusaders in the later generations.

roachboy · 07-21-2006, 02:20 PM

i dunno--the source of this "islamofascism can be connected to hitler" move seems pretty obvious: you name a phenomena "islamofascism" and you group it with other forms of fascism. hitler is also grouped with the set "fascism" and so there you have it.

well almost: the other set that crosses with the set "fascism" is "empty designator of entities we do not like to be used in wartime to sell the war".

so:

we do not like islamofascism
we do not like hitler
therefore islamofascism=hitler.
qed.

there really is nothing else going on with this.

well except that if you try to seriously think about radical conservatism within islam (1) you can link its emergences to particular contexts--mostly social and economic---(2) mobilizing around relgious texts always provides you the possibility of a type of "return to the original" as a way of articulating dissent--this option is continually available (think about how protestantism happened from inside what became catholicism if the abstract version doesnt work for you)--these two features alone mean that you should be able to at least situate contemporary forms of radical conservatism within islam in contemporary contexts---and that the recourse to earlier tradition more about symbolic tactics than anything else.

that would mean that attempts to link the content of these movements back to some "essence" of islam are at best unnecessary and are in any event simply wrong.

so what does this move do?

by removing the importance of the present from thinking and connecting these movements back to some unchanging "essence" you indicate that "they are just like that" (racism) and that there is nothing to be done, so exterminate the brutes.

o that and "we dont like them."

powerclown · 07-21-2006, 07:42 PM

I would consider 2 things to be the root causes of islamic fundamentalism today: modernism and secularism.

1) Secularism, where there is separation between religion and state. In particular, the lack of it in many muslim countries.

2) Modernism, where the West - formerly subjugate to the muslims in the early centuries AD, has surpassed the muslim countries, socially, economically, militarily, culturally. The muslims are struggling to regain and glorify their traditional values and loyalties, to reclaim their lost dignity, aspirations and beliefs. The world is witness to this anger and frustration.

It is interesting to note that, vis a vis America supporting Israel as a source of muslim rage, the same didn't hold true regarding Czechoslovakian military support (via the USSR) to the newborn Israeli state in the 40s, which had the effect of saving Israel from complete destruction. The muslims showed no particular ill will towards the Soviets for their policies towards Israel at the time, nor did they show any good will towards the US, which was then politically distant from Israel.

hiredgun · 07-21-2006, 09:48 PM

In post #24, roachboy has said what I was not articulate enough to say in my first response near the top of the thread. I apologize for that remark and point to roachboy's latest post as a great summary of why I reacted in that manner to the OP.

Seaver · 07-21-2006, 10:43 PM

Quote:

sec·u·lar·ism Audio pronunciation of "secularism" ( P ) Pronunciation Key (sky-l-rzm)
n.

1. Religious skepticism or indifference.
2. The view that religious considerations should be excluded from civil affairs or public education.

Secularism IS by definition separation of church and state.

While the roots of said fundamentalism may not lie in Nazism, what it has since become is fairly clear.

While it's a fallacy to say Islamic fundamentalism lies in Hitler and Nazism, what it has since become is debatable.

07-20-2006, 07:31 PM	#4 (permalink)
soccerchamp76 Go Cardinals Location: St. Louis/Cincinnati	I have begun reading the Koran in an attempt to understand where the Muslims are coming from. As an atheist, my reading is trickly for informational purposes and I can read it from an objective point-of-view. I am approximately 150 pages into it currently. Before it I read "End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason" which discusses Islam and terrorists, citing the Koran several times. In the Koran, "unbelievers" or, non-Muslims, are banished to eternal hell and punishment and aren't even allowed to be friends with Muslims. They are, however, said not to attack first, but if provoked, you must be willing to die for your God and dying for Allah is the greatest thing. __________________ Brian Griffin: Ah, if my memory serves me, this is the physics department. Chris Griffin: That would explain all the gravity.

07-20-2006, 07:56 PM	#6 (permalink)
matthew330 Banned	Can you honestly not see a distinction between the Islamic fundamentalism bred in the Arab world and beyond, and Christian fundamentalism? I think the others you mentioned were just a vain attempt to sound unbiased. Exactly what Christian organization planned, encouraged, and tought individuals to bomb, what, 3 abortion clinics 10years ago?....and continues this madness today? And why is it when these events happen the left reacts with blood boiling hatred that hasn't subsided in 10 years, but when Islamic fundamentalism rears it's ugly head the lefts reaction is to put it in the context of relgious fundamentalism in general? I seriously don't get it. the other two posts came just before this....so correction: Why is it that when Islamic fundamentalism kills, the lefts reaction is to pick up the Koran and study. Last edited by matthew330; 07-20-2006 at 07:59 PM..

07-20-2006, 08:13 PM	#8 (permalink)
soccerchamp76 Go Cardinals Location: St. Louis/Cincinnati	First off, I am conservative, not liberal. Second, I have already read the Old and New Testament so I have the Jews and Christians covered. I do understand why fundamentalism is wrong [i.e. Deuteronomy], but I wanted to know the motivation behind the hatred. Violence in the name of religion, when looked at objectively, is ridiculously asinine. Without reducing your argument to politics, the reason that Christian fundamentalism isn't viewed the same way is quite obvious. Pick up any piece of currency you own and read what it says on there. What do you swear on when you testify in court? Bingo __________________ Brian Griffin: Ah, if my memory serves me, this is the physics department. Chris Griffin: That would explain all the gravity.

07-20-2006, 08:32 PM	#11 (permalink)
soccerchamp76 Go Cardinals Location: St. Louis/Cincinnati	Comparing the rationalization's of the Nazi's and the Muslim's is comparing apples and oranges. It IS possible to know the root of fundamentalism, and in fact, most people do know why. Knowing isn't the battle, it is convincing the fundamentalists that it isn't prudent to be doing what they are doing. __________________ Brian Griffin: Ah, if my memory serves me, this is the physics department. Chris Griffin: That would explain all the gravity.

07-21-2006, 08:38 AM	#16 (permalink)
stevo Rail Baron Location: Tallyfla	roach, your omission of anything pre-1967 is obvious. Are you denying the facts as I have presented them? __________________ "If I am such a genius why am I drunk, lost in the desert, with a bullet in my ass?" -Otto Mannkusser

07-20-2006, 06:29 PM	#2 (permalink)
hiredgun Addict	So. Now that we know that Muslims are actually no better than Nazis, let's do something about it, shall we? Do you have something to discuss here?

07-20-2006, 06:40 PM	#3 (permalink)
Willravel ... a sort of licensed troubleshooter.	Actually Islamic fundamentalism comes from the same places as Christian fundamentalism, Jewish fundamentalism, Darwinist fundamentalism, and, yes, even Buddhist fundamentalism. Some people are introduced to a religion and it's teachings, but instead of learning the moral and ethical lessons to help them in life, they decide to nit pick it to the point of madness and then lord it over other people (no pun intended). Sometimes, they meet with others who have made the same mistake, then we have a problem. When you have a large group think lead by the most fundamental of the fundamentalists, then you have the dangerous religous oranizations that bomb Israeli markets or abortion clinics. What's it called when someone eventually makes a comparison to Hitler of Nazis in an argument? Oh, right, Godwin's law. I've been accoused of using it so often, I almost forgot.

07-20-2006, 08:28 PM	#10 (permalink)
matthew330 Banned	"I've met the worst from all sides." It's entirely possible you've met the worst of western religious fundamentalism, after all you live where they do and still feel comfortable bad mouthing them. I doubt you've met the worst of the Islamic fundamentalists and if you lived where they did I doubt you'd feel comfortable doing the same. And I don't think this post was flamebait. After all the first sentece was... "Many people feel the need to understand islamic terrorists and figure out why they feel the way they do." and by post #4 soccerchamp was already quoting the Koran. Stevo apparently had a point.

07-20-2006, 09:05 PM	#13 (permalink)
matthew330 Banned	"Deuteronomy"...hehe, that word just makes me giggle.

07-21-2006, 09:00 AM	#17 (permalink)
Charlatan Getting it. Super Moderator Location: Lion City	Reading both the OP and roach's post above underscores just how complicated the whole situation is. You can't easily dismiss either account. Both sides are culpable. Yes, in this current conflict, Hezbollah "started it". Israel is justified in engaging Hezbollah. But you cannot look at just this isolated incident (as much as some would). There will never be a solution that involves military action (not a lasting solution). __________________ "My hands are on fire. Hands are on fire. Ain't got no more time for all you charlatans and liars." - Old Man Luedecke

07-21-2006, 09:11 AM	#18 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	what facts? and what is with your identification with caroline glick? she presented "information"---and you did not present anything here-----you bit an editorial from the jerusalem post and pasted it without any information even about the type of article it is. there are certain basic rules about handling information--one is that you should be up front about the type of informatino that you are presenting. if i did not kind of know you through tfp i would wonder about your motives---in this case i just think that you want to see information like this and because you want to see it you overlooked the nature of the information. this happens to all of us--i am not outside this problem either---since it is structural, one way of dealing with it is to be consistent about noting the type of article it is. i think that all of us--yourself included--are usually pretty good about this, but not always, and this is such a situation. once your erased the status of the article, you then operated as though the editorial was self-evidently a sequence of statements of fact. it isn't. it is a polemical piece through and through. if you want to have a discussion about the history of the conflicts between the israelis and palestinians and how they impact on the present carnage, start with getting decent sources to use as a points of departure. something closer to a history, with source material that can be checked. the basic kind of thing that one should be able to expect if that is the discussion that you want. the article you posts is not such a point of departure. it may serve to reinforce your predispositions---in which case maybe a better name for the thread would be "an article that i like because it says what i want to read" rather than what is there. there is no debate about this. find better sources, present something like an actual history and maybe we can have a discussion. but not in this thread unless the information base changes. by the way, i hope i am not wrong in assuming that folk here are concerned about quality of information---for example i read trotskyist papers because i find them quaint--but i would not post editorials from a trot paper here and take out information about the type of article or the politics of the source. if i did that i would expect to be laughed at. the same assumptions should obtain for conservatives. __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite Last edited by roachboy; 07-21-2006 at 09:15 AM..

07-21-2006, 09:35 AM	#19 (permalink)
stevo Rail Baron Location: Tallyfla	I did not erase anything from the article. I thought it was obvious that it was an opinion piece. I will work on finding more-historical pieces, although I am moving this weekend, so it may not be until next week sometime. Until then we can put this thread on hold if you wish. __________________ "If I am such a genius why am I drunk, lost in the desert, with a bullet in my ass?" -Otto Mannkusser

07-21-2006, 09:40 AM	#20 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	aside: good luck with moving----i am still weathering the teacuptempest moving engendered for me. i'll wait on you to post other material, if you want to move into another type of discussion with me at least. that way you can keep the analyses consistent with your general viewpoint--if i were to do anything, i'd probably change the base on you and things would perhaps not work out as well. no need for anything here, so far as i am concerned---the other discussion would be interesting and i look forward to it. __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite

07-21-2006, 01:15 PM	#22 (permalink)
ubertuber spudly Location: Ellay	Even if one was to stipulate stevo's point (that Islamic fundamentalism is tied in its roots to Naziism), this is merely of academic interest in present times. To only ask "where did fundamentalism come from" is to ignore the present. You also have to ask why people today subscribe to the more asocial variants of fundamentalism - I bet the answer from the youngsters blowing themselves up won't have anything to do with the Nazis. Off the top of my head, I bet they have a lot more to do with economic realities and political climate. The answer to my question also begins to hint at what we could do to curtail the violent fundamentalist sects. When I think that we should try to understand people we treat as enemies, this is what I'm talking about - not merely some historical point which doesn't directly influence the current crop of people. __________________ Cogito ergo spud -- I think, therefore I yam

07-21-2006, 02:20 PM	#24 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	i dunno--the source of this "islamofascism can be connected to hitler" move seems pretty obvious: you name a phenomena "islamofascism" and you group it with other forms of fascism. hitler is also grouped with the set "fascism" and so there you have it. well almost: the other set that crosses with the set "fascism" is "empty designator of entities we do not like to be used in wartime to sell the war". so: we do not like islamofascism we do not like hitler therefore islamofascism=hitler. qed. there really is nothing else going on with this. well except that if you try to seriously think about radical conservatism within islam (1) you can link its emergences to particular contexts--mostly social and economic---(2) mobilizing around relgious texts always provides you the possibility of a type of "return to the original" as a way of articulating dissent--this option is continually available (think about how protestantism happened from inside what became catholicism if the abstract version doesnt work for you)--these two features alone mean that you should be able to at least situate contemporary forms of radical conservatism within islam in contemporary contexts---and that the recourse to earlier tradition more about symbolic tactics than anything else. that would mean that attempts to link the content of these movements back to some "essence" of islam are at best unnecessary and are in any event simply wrong. so what does this move do? by removing the importance of the present from thinking and connecting these movements back to some unchanging "essence" you indicate that "they are just like that" (racism) and that there is nothing to be done, so exterminate the brutes. o that and "we dont like them." __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite Last edited by roachboy; 07-21-2006 at 02:26 PM..

07-21-2006, 07:42 PM	#25 (permalink)
powerclown Junkie Location: Detroit, MI	I would consider 2 things to be the root causes of islamic fundamentalism today: modernism and secularism. 1) Secularism, where there is separation between religion and state. In particular, the lack of it in many muslim countries. 2) Modernism, where the West - formerly subjugate to the muslims in the early centuries AD, has surpassed the muslim countries, socially, economically, militarily, culturally. The muslims are struggling to regain and glorify their traditional values and loyalties, to reclaim their lost dignity, aspirations and beliefs. The world is witness to this anger and frustration. It is interesting to note that, vis a vis America supporting Israel as a source of muslim rage, the same didn't hold true regarding Czechoslovakian military support (via the USSR) to the newborn Israeli state in the 40s, which had the effect of saving Israel from complete destruction. The muslims showed no particular ill will towards the Soviets for their policies towards Israel at the time, nor did they show any good will towards the US, which was then politically distant from Israel. Last edited by powerclown; 07-22-2006 at 05:31 AM.. Reason: clarification

07-21-2006, 09:48 PM	#26 (permalink)
hiredgun Addict	In post #24, roachboy has said what I was not articulate enough to say in my first response near the top of the thread. I apologize for that remark and point to roachboy's latest post as a great summary of why I reacted in that manner to the OP.