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2 hours ago, bolverk said:

Two stories up right now that ought to make anyone question the tactics used by the IDF in this conflict, where more than 15,000 civilians, including thousands of children, have already been killed.

1. Three Israeli hostages carrying a white flag were shot and killed by the IDF.

On Friday, the three hostages emerged, shirtless, from a building tens of yards away from the Israeli soldiers, bearing a stick with a white cloth, the military said in a preliminary investigation. One of the soldiers, believing they posed a threat, opened fire on the three hostages, killing two of them and wounding the third, the early investigation found.

The third fled into the building, from which a cry in Hebrew for help could be heard. The battalion commander ordered the forces to hold their fire. But the wounded hostage later re-emerged, after which he was shot and killed, the military statement said.

In a briefing with reporters, an Israeli military official called the incident a violation of the military’s regulations. The hostages may have escaped or been abandoned by their captors, the official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity under military protocol.

2.  Yet another journalist was killed. That makes 64 who've been killed so far.

An Al Jazeera cameraman was killed and the network’s Arabic-language Gaza Strip bureau chief was wounded on Friday during an attack in southern Gaza, Al Jazeera said, the latest in a long string of journalist casualties in the war.

The cameraman, Samer Abu Daqqa, and Wael al-Dahdouh, the bureau chief, were covering the aftermath of airstrikes at a U.N. school-turned-shelter in Khan Younis when both were wounded, the network said. Mr. al-Dahdouh told Al Jazeera that he was able to walk out of the area and seek help, but Mr. Abu Daqqa died from his injuries, the network said.

In October, Mr. al-Dahdouh’s wife, son, daughter and infant grandson were killed at the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza, where they had been sheltering.

*****

According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, a nonprofit organization based in New York that defends the rights of journalists around the world, 64 journalists and media workers have been killed in Gaza since the war between Israel and Hamas began on Oct. 7, more than in any other similar period of time since the group started collecting data in 1992.

The C.P.J. defines journalists as “people who cover news or comment on public affairs through print, digital, broadcast media and other means,” and media workers as essential support staff, including translators, drivers and fixers. The group has said it does not include people in its tallies if there is evidence of their “acting on behalf of militant groups or serving in a military capacity at the time of their deaths.”

*****

International watchdogs have said that an Israeli strike on Oct. 13 that killed a videographer for the Reuters news agency and injured six other journalists was a targeted attack carried out by the Israeli military. Earlier this year, a C.P.J. report found that no one had been held accountable for nearly 20 journalists killed by the Israeli military since 2001.

Another, two women sniped inside a monastery in Gaza.

gaza-english-1702742802.jpg?_mhk=4bd552d

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13 minutes ago, Hornius Emeritus said:



Isn't the point that Christianity has (mostly) moved beyond that?

I was at a sherry drinking event with UT's eminent Roger Louis, A.J.P. Taylor, Martin Gilbert etc... in 1984 at U.T. It was only about a month before Taylor's accident.   Taylor made the observation that Islam and modernity are fundamentally opposed and that there are no countries in which Muslims comprised a sizeable minority that were not experiencing strife because, fundamentally, Islam can't accept the practice of other religions. Louis and Gilbert both thought about it and rather agreed, I think.  One of the greatest nights of my life. I was such a young whipperschnapper.

Islam and modernity aren’t any more fundamentally opposed than any other religion and modernity. 


Why people pretend that Islam is somehow unique compared to other religions is beyond me. There’s still plenty of hate and persecution from Christianity.

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57 minutes ago, Hornius Emeritus said:



Isn't the point that Christianity has (mostly) moved beyond that?

I was at a sherry drinking event with UT's eminent Roger Louis, A.J.P. Taylor, Martin Gilbert etc... in 1984 at U.T. It was only about a month before Taylor's accident.   Taylor made the observation that Islam and modernity are fundamentally opposed and that there are no countries in which Muslims comprised a sizeable minority that were not experiencing strife because, fundamentally, Islam can't accept the practice of other religions. Louis and Gilbert both thought about it and rather agreed, I think.  One of the greatest nights of my life. I was such a young whipperschnapper.

Fundamentalism, of any stripe, can't accept the practice of other religions. Pew Survey results from sub-Saharan Africa and SE Asia put the lie to the statement that this is an "Islam" problem when it's one of religious extremism. That's the enemy of tolerance, peace, and democracy, which should be fought everywhere.

 

Senegal, Mali, and Djibouti are overwhelmingly Muslim nations, with the first two being very tolerant. Djibouti is less so, but still a majority. Ghana, Nigeria, Kenya, and Tanzania all have significant Muslim minorities and still most of the population believes in religious tolerance to varying degrees. Maybe consider how different political situations in each country might account for different sentiments. 

Now, imagine this question being asked in much of the Deep South or how the answers would be different around our country.

image.png.49a22a23e99c5c09008353dab56182c2.png

image.thumb.png.26748b268736c96258b41755c2e0d146.png

https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2010/04/15/executive-summary-islam-and-christianity-in-sub-saharan-africa/

 

Southeast Asia has a mix of religions among its countries. Cambodia and Sri Lanka are overwhelmingly Buddhist and are the least tolerant among these countries. Indonesia and Malaysia are majority Muslim, and they see a threat from the fundamentalists, not from other religions.

But, holy cow, look at Singapore being tolerant as fuck.

Many major world religions have a significant presence in Singapore. Among Singaporean adults, 26% identify as Buddhist, 18% as Muslim, 17% as Christian, 8% as Hindu, 6% as a follower of Chinese traditional religions like Taoism or Confucianism, and 4% as some other religion, including Indigenous religions.

SR_23.11.20_SEA-pluralism_2.png

image.thumb.png.f9ea615236b04dede9531fa5afbab973.png

https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/11/20/how-people-in-south-and-southeast-asia-view-religious-diversity-and-pluralism/sr_23-11-20_sea-pluralism_3/

 

Edited to add: Hornius, man, I'm really disappointed, because I thought you'd be above the Islamophobia shit. The pronouncement that Islam is a uniquely problematic one is the exact type of stereotyping that leads to the lack of tolerance you're bemoaning.

And, considering that the conversation you had took place in the mid-1980s with an English historian during the times of the Troubles in Northern Ireland is especially rich, given the conflict between the Protestants and the Catholics.

Edited by bolverk
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52 minutes ago, bolverk said:

 

Edited to add: Hornius, man, I'm really disappointed, because I thought you'd be above the Islamophobia shit.

The pronouncement that Islam is a uniquely problematic one is the exact type of stereotyping that leads to the lack of tolerance you're bemoaning.

 


There is not one Islamophobic aspect on my part to my recitation of what A.J.P. Taylor said. And he was certainly no reactionary.




 

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5 minutes ago, Hornius Emeritus said:


There is not one Islamophobic aspect on my part to my recitation of what A.J.P. Taylor said. And he was certainly no reactionary.




 

Then what was the point of you recounting that story in the defense of Texas Hammer's undeniable Islamophobia? Besides, Taylor was clearly wrong.

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2 hours ago, Hornius Emeritus said:



Isn't the point that Christianity has (mostly) moved beyond that?

I was at a sherry drinking event with UT's eminent Roger Louis, A.J.P. Taylor, Martin Gilbert etc... in 1984 at U.T. It was only about a month before Taylor's accident.   Taylor made the observation that Islam and modernity are fundamentally opposed and that there are no countries in which Muslims comprised a sizeable minority that were not experiencing strife because, fundamentally, Islam can't accept the practice of other religions. Louis and Gilbert both thought about it and rather agreed, I think.  One of the greatest nights of my life. I was such a young whipperschnapper.

What a complete load of worthless horseshit. Muslims spent centuries carrying the torch of knowledge for mankind while European Christians wallowed in ignorance, superstition, and filth. 

There’s nothing inherent in either religion that would make the followers of one more capable of good or evil compared to the other. 

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On 12/15/2023 at 4:12 PM, Thetexashammer said:

I mean, sure. But do you see Christians killing muslims and screaming "God is Great!!!!WHARRRGABRBBBBBLLL" No. Because their definition of a "good person" in simply different than ours.

 

4 hours ago, David Dennison said:

You must not have been a history major.

 

4 hours ago, Hornius Emeritus said:

Isn't the point that Christianity has (mostly) moved beyond that?

I was at a sherry drinking event with UT's eminent Roger Louis, A.J.P. Taylor, Martin Gilbert etc... in 1984 at U.T. It was only about a month before Taylor's accident.   Taylor made the observation that Islam and modernity are fundamentally opposed and that there are no countries in which Muslims comprised a sizeable minority that were not experiencing strife because, fundamentally, Islam can't accept the practice of other religions. Louis and Gilbert both thought about it and rather agreed, I think.  One of the greatest nights of my life. I was such a young whipperschnapper.

 

No, I haven't been drinking. Look at the sequence above:

1) Texas Hammer says Islamophobic shit about Muslims having a different idea of what makes a person "good." 2) David responds by saying Texas Hammer must not have been a "history major" alluding to the Crusades. 3) You said that Christianity has moved beyond that and then recounted a story about how you heard some smart people agree with each other that Islam is incompatible with modernity and can't get along with any other religions. 

Maybe you missed what David was responding to. Again, I was surprised that you told that story within that context.

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6 minutes ago, hobbes2702 said:

Then what was the point of your post?


Exactly what it said: to offer that one of the greatest historians of the 20th century felt that 1)  Islam and modernity are fundamentally opposed and that 2) in 1984, there were no countries in which Muslims comprised a sizeable minority were not experiencing strife because, in his view, Islam and modernity of that fundamental incompatibility. 

That's all. It's like saying "Darrell Royall said that three things can happen when you try to pass the ball, and two of them are bad."   That statement doesn't indicate that the person offering up DKR's observation on forward passes has his own opinion. No. He's commenting that one view of forward passes is that of DKR. That's it.

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The local practice of Islam tends to be much more chill in places where it came via traders and merchants as opposed to invading armies as the charts @bolverk shows. In modern times, big problems appear anywhere “charities” and religious schools funded by Gulf money appear. The combination of: 1. Saudi custodianship of the holy sites; 2. official Saudi Wahhabism; and 3. Gulf oil revenues has been extremely toxic for the Islamic world. 

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28 minutes ago, 956 Worldwide said:

The local practice of Islam tends to be much more chill in places where it came via traders and merchants as opposed to invading armies as the charts @bolverk shows. In modern times, big problems appear anywhere “charities” and religious schools funded by Gulf money appear. The combination of: 1. Saudi custodianship of the holy sites; 2. official Saudi Wahhabism; and 3. Gulf oil revenues has been extremely toxic for the Islamic world. 

Yep, I sense that the problems of "modern Islam" are modern, just like the problems of Christian fundamentalism.

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4 hours ago, BrickHorn said:

What a complete load of worthless horseshit. Muslims spent centuries carrying the torch of knowledge for mankind while European Christians wallowed in ignorance, superstition, and filth. 

There’s nothing inherent in either religion that would make the followers of one more capable of good or evil compared to the other. 

Islam does not accept secular government. And the Koran is not Islamophobic. It is clear, for example, that the penalty for homosexuality is death. women are treated like slaves in Islam. Muslims are taught to hate jews and christians. These ideas are not compatible with democracy.

 

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35 minutes ago, Huckleberry said:

Jesus @Hornius Emeritus you are a good guy who occasionally wanders in with some of the most terrible posts I've ever seen.

"Oh I'm just relaying what some other guy said."

FFS.

Fucking nailed it.

29 minutes ago, Thetexashammer said:

Islam does not accept secular government. And the Koran is not Islamophobic. It is clear, for example, that the penalty for homosexuality is death. women are treated like slaves in Islam. Muslims are taught to hate jews and christians. These ideas are not compatible with democracy.

 

Shut the fuck up and go away. Start a thread and post your bigoted bullshit there

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On 12/15/2023 at 4:12 PM, Thetexashammer said:

I mean, sure. But do you see Christians killing muslims and screaming "God is Great!!!!WHARRRGABRBBBBBLLL" No. Because their definition of a "good person" in simply different than ours.

The Qur’an depicts the Jews as inveterately evil and bent on destroying the well-being of the Muslims. They are the strongest of all people in enmity toward the Muslims (5:82); they fabricate things and falsely ascribe them to Allah (2:79; 3:75, 3:181); they claim that Allah’s power is limited (5:64); they love to listen to lies (5:41); they disobey Allah and never observe his commands (5:13). They are disputing and quarreling (2:247); hiding the truth and misleading people (3:78); staging rebellion against the prophets and rejecting their guidance (2:55); being hypocritical (2:14, 2:44); giving preference to their own interests over the teachings of Muhammad (2:87); wishing evil for people and trying to mislead them (2:109); feeling pain when others are happy or fortunate (3:120); being arrogant about their being Allah’s beloved people (5:18); devouring people’s wealth by subterfuge (4:161); slandering the true religion and being cursed by Allah (4:46); killing the prophets (2:61); being merciless and heartless (2:74); never keeping their promises or fulfilling their words (2:100); being unrestrained in committing sins (5:79); being cowardly (59:13-14); being miserly (4:53); being transformed into apes and pigs for breaking the Sabbath (2:63-65; 5:59-60; 7:166); and more. They are under Allah’s curse (9:30), and Muslims should wage war against them and subjugate them under Islamic hegemony (9:29).

Still waiting for where you copied and pasted this from. Surely your source is not too embarrassing for you to reveal.

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Yes, TexasHammer. We should turn to the Bible for guidance on slavery, a woman's place, masturbation, proper sex, homosexuality, and diet.

Sure, the Koran is more warlike. I just doubt the wisdom of adhering to ancient documents written by the supersticious and used to unite and control people. 

 

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39 minutes ago, RomaVicta said:

Yes, TexasHammer. We should turn to the Bible for guidance on slavery, a woman's place, masturbation, proper sex, homosexuality, and diet.

Sure, the Koran is more warlike. I just doubt the wisdom of adhering to ancient documents written by the supersticious and used to unite and control people. 

 

Christians: Never mind all the people we’ve slaughtered and land we’ve stolen in the name of Jesus Christ. At least our holy book that we mostly ignore is PG.

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9 minutes ago, wildcat09 said:

Except when it’s not:

 

Yeah I was talking about the New Testament. The book that features that guy Jesus and his teachings to turn the other cheek, and blessed are the peacemakers, etc. The Old Testament is undeniably bloodthirsty and chauvinistic. And yeah, that’s part of the Christian Bible, too.

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17 hours ago, TwiceHorn said:

Yep, I sense that the problems of "modern Islam" are modern, just like the problems of Christian fundamentalism.

Yep, doctrines of Biblical inerrancy and literalism are creations of and reactions to the modern era; a lot of Islamic fundamentalism and extremism comes from similar places and motivations.

Most discussions of any religion at all get ate up with tropes for the simple reason that nearly all popular and accessible information on the subject is written by polemicists on one side or another. That’s no way to get a good feel for what the hell is going on and how people actually apply it. 
 

You see that right here. BrickHorn’s pop history of what was going on in Western Europe (and the Church’s role) during late antiquity to the late Middle Ages is a narrative created by 18th and 19th century modern anti-clerical, anti-Cathic polemicists who are completely discredited by anyone doing real scholarship. It’s the equivalent of Sam Harris’ deep takes on Islam. Not to mention the erasure of a thousand years of Greek speaking Christian Romans who kept reading and copying Aristotle and doing science— and their interactions, tensions, and fights with their eastern and western neighbors. 

TL;DR these narratives are pointless because they are polemics directed at  Modern ideological opponents and not actually designed to understand the things. It’s a world view based on the 18th and 19th century equivalent of a Reddit post.

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22 hours ago, Thetexashammer said:

Islam does not accept secular government. And the Koran is not Islamophobic. It is clear, for example, that the penalty for homosexuality is death. women are treated like slaves in Islam. Muslims are taught to hate jews and christians. These ideas are not compatible with democracy.

You do know that we are currently, in the name of the Lord your God, forcing women to carry dead fetuses to sepsis and cause the mother permanent damage right? And those same christofascists are marching through the streets with torches chanting how the "Jews will not replace" them? And the chosen leader of the modern evangelical movement, Donald J Trump, is just deadass stealing lines from Hitler?

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Came to see y'all's take on this, but it doesn't seem to be reported here yet.

3 Israeli hostages had escaped and had a white flag with SOS or some such thing. They were yelling they were escaped hostages in Hebrew, but were gunned down by IDF.

Cluster. Their families are apoplectic.

https://www.npr.org/2023/12/16/1219826061/israel-hostages-gaza-hamas-palestinians

 

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Yeah, it's obviously pretty horrible. TPM has a newsletter (paywalled) noting the similarities to the IDF murdering another Israeli who had stopped a Hamas terrorist attack last month:

Quote

You’ve likely heard about the incident on Friday in which Israeli soldiers shot and killed three Israeli hostages who had either escaped from their captors or been abandoned by them during fighting in the Shejaiya neighborhood of Gaza City. The three were two Israeli Jews and one Israeli Bedouin, each of whom had been captured on October 7th. At the most basic level this is a version of “friendly fire” in which soldiers inadvertently kill fellow soldiers from their own army during wartime. In this case, it’s hostages not fellow soldiers. But the nature of the case is comparable.

The incident has produced a firestorm within Israel, both for the inherently tragic nature of the hostages’ deaths but also because of the particular details of how they died. Their deaths have added renewed intensity to arguments and protests about how the government is balancing the imperatives of destroying Hamas and bringing the country’s hostages home safely. Recent weeks have seen various protests in Israel, often led by or featuring families of hostages, demanding the government focus more on making a deal with Hamas to return all the hostages. The controversy has been fueled in part by Prime Minister Netanyahu’s almost total refusal to visit and meet with residents of communities attacked on October 7th or the families of the hostages.

I want to provide some more detail about how this happened and combine that with the story of another shooting that took place in Jerusalem on November 30th, that of Yuval Castleman.

Let me briefly explain the circumstances of Castleman’s death.

On November 30th, Castleman, a lawyer and former police officer on his way to work, came upon a terrorist attack unfolding at a Jerusalem bus stop. Two gunman had already killed three civilians on their morning commute. (Hamas later took credit for the attack.) Castleman got out of his car with his gun, charged toward the scene and shot and killed the two attackers, essentially ending the attack. As this was happening, two soldiers arrived. An additional man, later identified as off-duty reservist Aviad Frija, also approached Castleman. The three mistook Castleman for one of the terrorists.

Up to this point we have the makings of tragic confusion. Castleman realized that the soldiers thought he was one of the attackers and proceeded to toss away his gun. He opened his shirt (to show he had no additional weapons or a suicide vest) and put his hands in the air while shouting in Hebrew “don’t shoot” and that he was an Israeli. At some point in these fraught moments he threw his wallet with his ID toward the soldiers to identify himself. The off-duty reservist, Frija, shot Castleman multiple times and left him bleeding on the ground.

Castleman died hours later in the hospital.

While the true circumstances of the incident were still unclear, Frija was briefly embraced as a hero for killing the suspected terrorist and cheered by right-wing politicians. He noted proudly in interviews that he was part of the “hilltop youth,” groups of radical teens and young men in the West Bank who act as squatters on land for new illegal outposts and as vigilantes attacking Palestinians and their property.

Castleman’s final moments have a multi-layered complexity as fascinating as his death is tragic that bundles together multiple stories in one chaotic flurry. At one level, it’s friendly fire and mistaken identity. Frija thought he was killing a Hamas terrorist who had already shot and/or killed several Israeli civilians. But IDF rules of engagement make it crystal clear he shouldn’t have shot Castleman even if he was a terrorist. Castleman threw down his gun, opened his jacket to show he had no suicide vest or other weapons; he got on his knees. Castleman’s family rightly called the shooting an “execution.”

In a story reminiscent of police shootings in the United States, Frija originally claimed that Castleman had made suspicious movements that put him in fear for his life. But subsequently released surveillance video of the incident put the lie to these claims. (Frija is currently under house arrest while being investigated for reckless homicide.)

Though Castleman’s death is not directly related, his shooting comes in the midst of an effort on the part of an extremist government minister in charge of the Israeli police, Itamar Ben Gvir, to flood the country with guns for civilians. (Though armed soldiers are a common sight in Israel, firearms in civilian hands have historically been tightly regulated.) Ben Gvir has also called for loosening open fire regulations.

In the aftermath of Castleman’s death, former IDF chief of staff and one-time Netanyahu ally Moshe Ya’alon said that Ben Gvir’s “populist” calls to loosen open-fire regulations had contributed to the climate that made Castleman’s death possible. Ya’alon pointed to a similar incident in 2016. It was quite similar to Castleman’s except for the fact that the injured and unarmed man on the ground really was a terrorist. IDF soldier Elor Azaria shot him. He was later tried and convicted for manslaughter. But he became a hero on the Israeli right for his actions.

Let’s return to the killing of the three Israeli hostages in Gaza City.

It’s important to understand that this takes place in the chaos of urban warfare. Hamas fighters’ only chance to engage Israeli soldiers on winning terms is through subterfuge and ambushes. The IDF has reported that Hamas fighters have used recordings of babies and people crying for help in Hebrew to lure in soldiers. But even in this context the details of the killings are at best troubling.

While the incident is still being investigated, preliminary reports indicate that the three men, shirtless, appeared waving a white flag. An Israeli soldier in a nearby building opened fire and shouted “terrorists!” This initial volley killed two of the hostages. The third, apparently injured, retreated into a building from which he could be heard crying for help in Hebrew. At this point the battalion commander left the building and called on his soldiers to stop shooting. Moments later the third hostage again came out of the building and another soldier opened fire, killing him.

None of us who haven’t been in that kind of situation can likely imagine the level of terror experienced by soldiers charged with clearing out terrorist fighters, knowing those fighters are laying in wait to catch them unawares or lure them into ambushes. But that’s precisely what military training and clear rules of engagement are meant to handle. In this case, it certainly appears to have failed, though we should wait for the results of the full investigation before rendering any final judgments.

These are two different incidents in very different circumstances. We should be cautious about drawing too strong conclusions since each incident turns on individual factors, some of which we may not yet know. But both suggest that clear military rules of engagement are frequently disregarded and that Palestinians, whether surrendering terrorists or innocents, are killed contrary to prohibitions against opening fire on unarmed or surrendering people. We’re hearing about these incidents precisely because the victims were Israelis.

One clear fact of history and military life is that occupations degrade militaries, both morally and operationally. There’s no question that this has happened with the IDF, after half a century of occupation. The ongoing settlement process has both entrenched the occupation while also breeding a community of violent extremists who have themselves entered the IDF in growing numbers and changed it. Notably, the far-right minister I mentioned above, Itamar Ben Gvir, was rejected by the IDF, despite the fact that there is universal conscription, because of his far-right-activism during his youth. He first became notorious as a teenager in November 1995 when he stole the emblem from then-Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin’s official car, bragging, “just like we got to this emblem, we can get to Rabin.” Weeks later Rabin was murdered by fellow extremist Yigal Amir. Ben Gvir has subsequently been convicted of various offenses, like incitement to racism, supporting a terrorist organization, vandalism. The list is almost endless. When activists tried to sue to prevent him from becoming a minister earlier this year he insisted he’d mellowed.

Frija meanwhile was inducted into a special unit created only a few years ago designated specifically for members of the “hilltop youth.” The IDF is considering disbanding the unit. Unsurprisingly it has become notorious for some of the worst IDF abuses in the West Bank.

As I said, occupation degrades militaries, morally, operationally. It also degrades societies. The world changed so much on October 7th, certainly in Israel, that it’s easy to forget the country had been awash in massive civilian protests for going on a year over the government’s attempted judicial coup. The leaders of those protests worked hard to keep the protests focused on the threat the government posed toward Israeli democracy rather than other issues like the occupation since that is profoundly divisive and would shatter the coalition that sustained the protests. But anyone with eyes open could see that the occupation and the settler extremists it spawned can’t be separated from the threats to democracy within Israel. One sustains the other; one requires the other.

It's hard not to draw some similarities between our forever wars and their encirclement of Gaza and their expansions into the West Bank.  There's just no way to have a fascist government and a non-fascist military. The fascism will infect and degrade the military's professionalism and readiness, and they have in Israel. On a related note, approximately 20% of Israeli soldiers who've died in this war were killed by friendly fire or other accidents.  As Marshall notes above, even the most well-intentioned soldiers are dealing with an unbelievably stressful situation, and I can certainly understand how scared they must be. But even the well-intentioned ones are fucking up, a lot. And they've got plenty of their own Eddie Gallaghers too:

Quote

Pope Francis condemned an Israeli sniper’s killing of two women who were taking shelter at a Catholic church in the Gaza Strip on Saturday, describing it as terrorism as he gave his weekend blessing.

“Some would say ‘It is war. It is terrorism,’” he said. “Yes, it is war. It is terrorism.”

The Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem said that the women, a mother and daughter, had been walking to the Sister’s Convent at the Holy Family Parish when shots rang out. “One was killed as she tried to carry the other to safety,” the ecclesiastical office said.

Seven other people were shot and wounded in the attack at the compound, where many of Gaza’s dwindling Christian population have taken shelter since Israel declared a state of war on Hamas in October.

“No warning was given, no notification was provided,” the patriarchate’s statement continued. “They were shot in cold blood inside the premises of the parish, where there are no belligerents.”

The pope identified the women as Nahida Khalil Anton and her daughter Samar Kamal Anton.

“Unarmed civilians are the objects of bombings and shootings,” he said. “And this happened even inside the Holy Family parish complex, where there are no terrorists, but families, children, people who are sick or disabled, nuns.”

The Angelus prayer on Sunday was not the first time that Francis has explicitly connected Israel’s actions to terror since its bombardment campaign began. In a Nov. 22 speech at St. Peter’s Square, he stated that the conflict had “gone beyond war. This is terrorism.”

The pope also noted in his Sunday address that the IDF had also targeted the Convent of the Sisters of Mother Theresa, a part of the compound that houses 54 disabled people. The attack, which also occurred on Saturday, destroyed the convent’s generator and fuel resources, with the patriarchate saying the building had been rendered “uninhabitable.”

The Israel Defense Forces initially refuted the claim of an attack on the parish, telling The Times of Israel that, though church officials had contacted the military about the parish about nearby explosions on Saturday, “no reports of a hit on the church, nor civilians being injured or killed, were raised.” It added that the Israeli military “does not target civilians, no matter their religion.”

Hours later, however, an IDF spokesperson confirmed to Fox News that an “incident” at the church had indeed taken place. “When reviewing incidents that may have taken place in the vicinity of churches in Gaza, it was found that an incident took place during yesterday afternoon (Saturday) in another area in Gaza, near the Latin Church in the Shejayia area,” the spokesperson said.

“An initial review suggests that IDF troops, who were operating against Hamas terrorists in the area, operated against a threat that they identified in the area of the church,” they continued. “The IDF is conducting a thorough review of the incident.”

The Holy See, the government of Vatican City, republished the Jerusalem patriarchate’s statement in a news release issued through Vatican News. It added: “Israel has justified the attack, claiming the presence of a missile launcher in the parish.”

The killings in the parish took place just days after the IDF admitted it had accidentally killed three Israeli hostages, having mistaken them as a threat. The military said over the weekend that the hostages had been unarmed and waving a white flag. The IDF has said the incident is under investigation.

Whatever professionalism the IDF used to have, they resemble nothing more than American police today.

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On 12/17/2023 at 8:44 PM, Nivek said:

There hasn’t been enough blood or carnage yet.

Don’t worry, the “rules based international order” is about to really kick in. We got shipping lanes to protect. Which we clearly value more than the lives of Palestinian babies and children. 

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I will be waiting to see if anyone has an idea about whether the time and money spent on building all the tunnels could have been better used to help the people who really needed it.  Not to mention who paid for it and apparently got it done without attracting much attention.

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1 hour ago, AnTiM said:

I will be waiting to see if anyone has an idea about whether the time and money spent on building all the tunnels could have been better used to help the people who really needed it.  Not to mention who paid for it and apparently got it done without attracting much attention.

Well, according to Ehud Barak at least some of the tunnels were built by Israel so you might start by asking your questions there.  

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2 hours ago, Anastasis said:

Don’t worry, the “rules based international order” is about to really kick in. We got shipping lanes to protect. Which we clearly value more than the lives of Palestinian babies and children. 

From the River to the Sea, we shall ship holiday gifts to thee in Galilee.  

Dammit, Amazon had something for this.  Wait, is that a river too?  

Completely anecdotal-but in the past few days I have seen an overwhelming uptick in pro-Palestine banners/bills/posters/etc. on UT campus and surrounding environs.  Which is weird to me because 90% of the students aren't on campus right now.  I can't help but wonder if somebody is astro-turfing it to make it look like young people/faculty/leadership on top-tiered college campuses are feeling one way or the other about the Gaza conflict for media purposes.  But it's even stranger than they wouldn't have just googled "When does UT-Austin finish final exams?"  Seriously, drive around campus this week, it's fucking bizarre.  There are more leaflets than there are people.  

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I admit, I haven’t been paying much attention to this fight other than I know it’s going on.  At the risk of sounding like a total moron, I have to ask the question.  Why should I (American) care about this Israel vs Hamas war?  I recognize the tragedy in people losing their lives in both sides, but other than that I don’t understand why I should care who wins.

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6 hours ago, Horn Dogg said:

I admit, I haven’t been paying much attention to this fight other than I know it’s going on.  At the risk of sounding like a total moron, I have to ask the question.  Why should I (American) care about this Israel vs Hamas war?  I recognize the tragedy in people losing their lives in both sides, but other than that I don’t understand why I should care who wins.

At a minimum, I think you should care because we have been indirectly funding and running cover for the occupation for decades and in this particular recent exchange are sending one side planes full of bombs to execute a collective punishment program that intends to obliterate Gaza at best and genocide the people at worst. I think that we should all care about how our tax dollars are used overseas and the potential long term implications of our actions. We cannot control what anyone else involved does, but we can control the role that we play.

 

 

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9 minutes ago, Anastasis said:

At a minimum, I think you should care because we have been indirectly funding and running cover for the occupation for decades and in this particular recent exchange are sending one side planes full of bombs to execute a collective punishment program that intends to obliterate Gaza at best and genocide the people at worst. I think that we should all care about how our tax dollars are used overseas and the potential long term implications of our actions. We cannot control what anyone else involved does, but we can control the role that we play.

 

 

Israel has been occupying Gaza for decades?

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On 12/17/2023 at 7:55 PM, Captainant said:

You do know that we are currently, in the name of the Lord your God, forcing women to carry dead fetuses to sepsis and cause the mother permanent damage right? And those same christofascists are marching through the streets with torches chanting how the "Jews will not replace" them? And the chosen leader of the modern evangelical movement, Donald J Trump, is just deadass stealing lines from Hitler?

He's confusing religion with theocracy. The theocrats in that region won, that's why it's the way it is currently. The theocrats are winning here and we'll be the same backwards shithole if they win nationwide. 

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US leadership on display.  I guess the progressive caucus' influence really is shining through with the Biden administration.  "Present".  

https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/un-security-council-acts-boost-aid-gaza-after-us-abstains-2023-12-22/

Amid global outrage over a rising Gaza death toll in 11 weeks of war between Israel and Hamas and a worsening humanitarian crisis in the Palestinian enclave, the U.S. abstained to allow the 15-member council to adopt a resolution drafted by the United Arab Emirates. 

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Did you have sense enough to delete the comment "BABIIIEEES!!!" to mock their deaths with the photo of a raging Sam Kinison, or did one of the mods take it out?

Merry Christmas, asshole.

image.thumb.png.db99af3cee8ec0d351bff116b9c43d9a.png

There will be no musical festivities. No tree-lighting ceremony. No extravagant decorations that normally bedeck the West Bank city of Bethlehem at Christmas. With the war in Gaza raging, this is a city in mourning.

In perhaps the most overt display of how Israel’s war in Gaza has dampened Christmas celebrations in the city seen as the birthplace of Jesus, a Lutheran church put up its crèche, but with a sad and symbolic twist. The baby Jesus — wrapped in a keffiyeh, the black-and-white checkered scarf that has become a badge of Palestinian identity — is lying not in a makeshift cradle of hay and wood. Instead, he lies among the rubble of broken bricks, stones and tiles that represent so much of Gaza’s destruction.

“We’ve been glued to our screens, seeing children pulled from under the rubble day after day. We’re broken by these images,” said the Rev. Munther Isaac, the pastor at the Evangelical Lutheran Christmas Church who created the crèche. “God is under the rubble in Gaza, this is where we find God right now.”

The war began on Oct. 7, in response to Hamas’s surprise attack on Israel that left about 1,200 dead. As the conflict enters its third month, some of the most ubiquitous images of the death and destruction have been of dead Palestinian children being pulled from the ruins of Israeli airstrikes. Nearly half of Gaza’s population of 2.2 million are children, and about 70 percent of those killed are women and children, according to the Gaza Health Ministry and the United Nations.

*****

Last month, the patriarchs and heads of various churches in Jerusalem in a statement urged their congregations to forgo “unnecessarily festive activities.” Instead, the statement said, priests and worshipers should “focus more on the spiritual meaning of Christmas in their pastoral activities and liturgical celebrations.”

*****

“We will avoid music, outside ceremonies and outside decorations,” said the Rev. Rami Asakrieh, a parish priest of the Latin church of Saint Catherine at the Church of the Nativity. But he added that inside the church, decorations were important.

The horror of war cannot be allowed to bury the spirit of Jesus, he said on a recent day, as church workers set up a small Christmas tree along one of the corridors. “Despite the circumstances, we must still show that Jesus is the source of happiness and peace in the church.”

*****

For Pastor Isaac, whose Lutheran church has gained some fame with his rubble-themed manger scene, the focus during this holy time needs to be on Israel’s bombardment of Gaza, not on the cancellation of Christmas festivities.

“We don’t see this as a war against Hamas,” he said. “It’s a war against Palestinians.”

He came up with the idea of the altered manger scene as a way of both marking the birth of Jesus, but also acknowledging the death of so many children.

“This is what Christmas looks like now in Palestine, children being killed, houses destroyed and families displaced,” he said of his crèche. “We see the image of Jesus in every child that is killed in Gaza.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/23/world/middleeast/israel-gaza-bethlehem-christmas.html

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In Isaiah 11, the prophet, his heart expressing utmost yearnings from God, speaks of the wolf laying down with the lamb. Yes, 2700 years ago, in that region, there were plenty of wolves and lambs. I scoffed when Hamas was called “sub-human”; what they did was all too human. Israel, Palestine, the Levant, the ME, whatever you wish to call it, has been a rough area for a long time. 
 
Isaiah, if you were to meet him, would resemble nothing more closely, in our modern world, than one of those scary clerics from the Afghan mountains. Dour, grim, and trained to worship by ritually slaughtering living animals and rendering them into pieces per a learned ancient ritual. That he could write and express himself in terms that would resonate for centuries was a bonus. 
 
This man, when communing with God, seeking out God’s utmost will, expressing humanity’s utmost desire, wrote a prophecy of peace, of the predators and prey coexisting. 
 
We have four advent candles- hope, peace, love and joy. We all need to hope for peace, so we can get to the other two. 

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In Isaiah 11, the prophet, his heart expressing utmost yearnings from God, speaks of the wolf laying down with the lamb. Yes, 2700 years ago, in that region, there were plenty of wolves and lambs. I scoffed when Hamas was called “sub-human”; what they did was all too human. Israel, Palestine, the Levant, the ME, whatever you wish to call it, has been a rough area for a long time. 
 
Isaiah, if you were to meet him, would resemble nothing more closely, in our modern world, than one of those scary clerics from the Afghan mountains. Dour, grim, and trained to worship by ritually slaughtering living animals and rendering them into pieces per a learned ancient ritual. That he could write and express himself in terms that would resonate for centuries was a bonus. 
 
This man, when communing with God, seeking out God’s utmost will, expressing humanity’s utmost desire, wrote a prophecy of peace, of the predators and prey coexisting. 
 
We have four advent candles- hope, peace, love and joy. We all need to hope for peace, so we can get to the other two. 

Meh. Humanity long ago, and repeatedly, melted down all of those candles into one big “hate and war” candle. Its burns bright, and long.
There is no hope for peace in the levant. One side or another will eventually succeed in its genocidal ambitions, meaning that one side is functionally extinct and the other is a bunch of victorious murderous genocidal psychopaths. They knew this 3,000 years ago, we know it today.
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On 12/24/2023 at 9:35 AM, bolverk said:

Did you have sense enough to delete the comment "BABIIIEEES!!!" to mock their deaths with the photo of a raging Sam Kinison, or did one of the mods take it out?

Merry Christmas, asshole.

And people wonder why I've been so touchy on this subject.

Merry Christmas, you boisterous bunch of boorish baboons.

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1 minute ago, tx 3 putt said:


 

 

Yeah, but they released all the remaining hostages.

Oh, wait.  They haven't done that.  Hmm.  Seems like if they did that would be a step in the right direction.  Too much to ask, though.  

I heard they were planning on attacking synagogues in Europe now.  Fine people on both side.

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