Can anyone tell me why the guy who posts what appear to be the Atheist Republic’s YouTube videos (Armin Navabi?) seems so dead set on defending Israel’s actions in the Gaza Strip? I’ve seen quite a few of his videos come through to my mailbox and, quite honestly, I’ve given up watching the bloody things.
Please don’t misunderstand me, I absolutely consider Hamas to be wrong in their 7th October 2023 attack on Israel and have no sympathy whatsoever with any punishment meted out against them and more besides. However, even though I understand that the Palestinian people voted them in as a government in 2006 (don’t think there’s been a real election since), I cannot see how anyone can objectively defend current Israeli actions against Gazans.
Sorry, but it just bugs me how one-sided (and seemingly out-of-step) his videos seem to be.
The attack by Hamas can be wrong and the Palestinian people can be human beings who should not be brutalized.
Two more things can be true at the same time:
You can call what the secular government of Israel is doing what it is, and still not be even remotely anti-Semitic.
Yes the Palestinians voted in Hamas in 2006, in the same way that the US voted in our dear fuhrer, and by similar thin margins. And then we did it again.
And no there hasn’t been an election since in Palestine, which may quite possibly be our fate here in the US as well. I would not want to be considered subhuman 20 years from now because about a third of my fellow citizens once voted for the Fuhrer and another third couldn’t be arsed to vote at all.
As for why some people are so black and white and simplistic, you’d have to ask them what their problem is. All I know is that the only real obscenity here is that Israel is reproducing the Holocaust under another name with different victims, which just makes it twice as evil.
pretty much any use of a military outside its assoicated border (to kill people/whatever) is going to be a war crime.
Shortly after the attacks in October of 2023, when a death toll of about 1,000 had been announced: I predicted the IDF would kill 20,000 civilians in retaliation, to maintain their 20:1 kill ratio against civilians they have maintained for decades. I lost some friends on that one. Now they have killed 3x that amount, and those people still won’t talk to me! People seem to be extra emotional about this one.
I doubt that the fighting is rooted in religion. Religion is, imo, merely the robe it wears. If religion in the area went away, I think the fighting would continue.
Sort of. But I don’t think it’s being used consciously. I think it’s most likely all about otherness. I think if it weren’t religion, it would be something else…nation or tribe or oil or language…. People in that area have been warring for many, many centuries. IMO, it’s been baked into the culture.
It’s always hard to separate direct religious ideology, religion-as-catalyst/accelerant, politics wearing robes of religion as you put it, pure politics, and total bullshit.
Although it’s my understanding for example that most Israeli Jews are not hyper-orthodox and thus don’t take the Torah super-literally / seriously, I have seen the argument floating about that Israel is simply doing what Joshua did when Israel originally took over Canaan (Palestine), as claimed in the Torah: utterly destroying all men, women, and children of the native residents. Making Israel Great Again. Maybe kidnapping the comely young virgins for the soldiers to take as “wives”, etc.
lol Israel was never great. It’s always been a hell hole. It’s mostly desert and people warring with each other over petty reasons. They might as well move to the moon and kill each other over land there.
Undoubtedly, though of course some people can’t envisage their belief in the “one true god” makes any sense, unless it comes with perks from that chosen deity…
“We’re are not stealing land from anyone, it’s always been ours, thats the way god wants it, read the bible.”
It’s staggering that people in nations like America and Canada still believe in magic and fantasy literature based on gods, dungeons, and dragons. Especially when those nations are very dependent on scientific technology that they the religious fools are so quick to dismiss when it’s right there in front of them.