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I agree that the phrasing was debatable. Replacing the words: "affect muslims" with "affect everyone" would have been more precise and less biased. But the com

by kossTKR 12y ago

I agree that the phrasing was debatable. Replacing the words: "affect muslims" with "affect everyone" would have been more precise and less biased. But the comparison you just made, equaling todays regular law abiding muslings with passive nazi onlookers in the third-reich, is delusional from a historical standpoint, and despicable from a diplomatic one. The state fuelled propaganda targeting the jew population after the German economic struggles was a majority culture fuelled by state propaganda that created a scapegoat with racial overtones. Most muslim "anti-semitism" in the west today stems from a frustration with israels war policy. Not an inherent racial doctrine. Comparing Jihad to State sponsored activities like SS or Hitler Jugend makes no sense. Jihad in western countries is created mostly with foreign training, money and initiative springing from international social media. Being active in the the Nazi army was for most people forced conscription, completely outside of personal volition, e.g. Hitler Jugend, SS etc. Nazism and Radical Islam are of course both extremely right-wing, conservative and fascistic in their nature. They share a lot of common traits, but their roots and causes doesn't compare. Lets be careful before we compare all of our fellow muslim citizens with Nazi sympathizers shall we?

duncan_bayne 12y ago
Re. anti-semitism in Islam: to claim that it's a response to Israeli politics is utterly false. It has existed in the religion for centuries, in a similar fashion to anti-semitism in Catholicism. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam_and_antisemitism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam_and_antisemitism Re. conscription: participation in Jihad is mandatory in Islamic states. Currently, volunteer Mujahideen are fighting an asymmetric war against Western countries on their own soil. Those who volunteer to fight are in fact more morally culpable than those conscripted into service. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jihad http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jihad Re. sympathy for Sharia: http://www.pewforum.org/2013/04/30/the-worlds-muslims-religion-politics-society-beliefs-about-sharia/ http://www.pewforum.org/2013/04/30/the-worlds-muslims-religi...
- kossTKR 12y ago
  "Utterly false". How do you know that? Yes i to can link to a long wikipedia article about Christianity and Antisemitism. Long wiki lists doesn't count as arguments. I don't believe most modern anger against jews stems from religious doctrine, i really do believe it stems from a more general sense of frustration with western foreign policy. All religions hate on each other. I know you want to pick out islam as the root of much evil but i just do not agree with how the whole debate is being framed. I myself am not religious and probably share a good deal of opinions with you. But i have come to despise the way the "new-atheism" conducts itself. It creates tensions and stops conversation. It focuses a beam so narrow, the public discourse has become one dimensional. The current discourse in atheistic communities, and lately also the general consensus in the media - of deriving some sorts of inherent psychological constants from islam, is detrimental from an academic perspective. It disregards so many other factors at play other than the religion itself e.g. geography, local culture, economics, foreign policies, geopolitics, history etc. People and cultures are different, everywhere. Do you think most muslims practice their faith based on intense historical investigation and religious reading? And do you think that they come to the same conclusions? They don't. Most muslims get cherry picked info. They read a little, some don't, many gets lots of info from moderate imams, few get loads of material from radical imams. Some are Sunni, some are Shia, some left-wing like parts of the kurds, some are progressive like much of the youth in Iran. Many people have daily battles with the radical parts of islam all over the middle east. The Arab Spring was a strong testament to this. I have met many progressive muslims from all over the middle east over the years. Highly educated, well spoken. Many of them still cultural muslims whoms most fundamental problems with the west stems from the incessant and extremely detrimental foreign meddling in the middle east. Several countries in the middle east were pretty progressive before war tore them apart in the mid to late twentieth century. Proxy warfare between the US and Russia. CIA funding of assorted radicals up through the decades, coups that lead to theocracies. Israels wars that lead to a radicalisation of large parts of the muslim youth. And western alliance with the largest promoter of radical islam, Saudi Arabia. Furthermore the incredibly incompetent way the US war machine played out Shia against Sunnis, and therefore directly aided the creation of ISIS today. the list goes on. Watch the frontline documentaries on Iraq or Isis to get a gist of how catastrophic the western countries still act to this day. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/losing-iraq/ http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/losing-iraq/ All of these factors and more, have now created this radical, angry and war-damaged version of Islam, that now clashes increasingly with western values. My point is that i think it is extremely detrimental to focus on Islam as some sort of absolute culprit of the atrocious acts, rather than create an explanatory model with the myriad of factors spanning a century, that has made certain groups of people come this.
ars 12y ago
> Most muslim "anti-semitism" in the west today stems from a frustration with israels war policy. Not an inherent racial doctrine. That is 100% completely untrue. The evidence is that ordinary Egyptians who loath the Palestinians, and have a peace treaty with Israel STILL hate the Jews. Muslims are willing to tolerate Jews if the Jews are in the position of subordinate, but as soon as the Jew "lifts his head" as it were that tolerance vanishes (the Jews living in Iran is a great example of this).
- kossTKR 12y ago
  So what you are saying is that because parts of the Egyptian population, dislike palestinians but still hate jews, their anger must surely stem from inherent religious traits. That is just a bad chain of logic. Rather a the much more logical and broad explanation that _Israel is Egypts freaking neigbhoor_ and has been attacked by israel several times over the years. Off course the vast majority in Egypt will have a problem with jews after several wars. This is what i am talking about in my other posts. To create an explanatory model from one factor, religion, is pathetic, especially when you realize that these two groups of people has been neighboors at war. That the situation would be different if israel did not have such and incredibly bad relationship with the whole region.
  - ars 12y ago
    Is it difficult to contort your brain into such backwards logic? First I notice you have no reply to what I said about Iran. Second, "has been attacked by Israel"? Really? Or perhaps, attacked Israel because they hate Jews so much? "Have been neighbors at war"? The last war was 41 years ago! That's a long time to hold on to hate. And yet somehow, the Jews in Israel do not hate the Egyptians. What makes them different? According to you they have a much better reason for it, considering things like the Yom Kippur war. Your convoluted logic is backwards and wrong. > That the situation would be different if israel did not have such and incredibly bad relationship with the whole region. It's bizarre how you try to somehow make their hate, Israel's fault.
    - kossTKR 12y ago

by kossTKR 12y ago

duncan_bayne 12y ago

Re. anti-semitism in Islam: to claim that it's a response to Israeli politics is utterly false. It has existed in the religion for centuries, in a similar fashion to anti-semitism in Catholicism. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam_and_antisemitism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam_and_antisemitism Re. conscription: participation in Jihad is mandatory in Islamic states. Currently, volunteer Mujahideen are fighting an asymmetric war against Western countries on their own soil. Those who volunteer to fight are in fact more morally culpable than those conscripted into service. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jihad http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jihad Re. sympathy for Sharia: http://www.pewforum.org/2013/04/30/the-worlds-muslims-religion-politics-society-beliefs-about-sharia/ http://www.pewforum.org/2013/04/30/the-worlds-muslims-religi...

kossTKR 12y ago
"Utterly false". How do you know that? Yes i to can link to a long wikipedia article about Christianity and Antisemitism. Long wiki lists doesn't count as arguments. I don't believe most modern anger against jews stems from religious doctrine, i really do believe it stems from a more general sense of frustration with western foreign policy. All religions hate on each other. I know you want to pick out islam as the root of much evil but i just do not agree with how the whole debate is being framed. I myself am not religious and probably share a good deal of opinions with you. But i have come to despise the way the "new-atheism" conducts itself. It creates tensions and stops conversation. It focuses a beam so narrow, the public discourse has become one dimensional. The current discourse in atheistic communities, and lately also the general consensus in the media - of deriving some sorts of inherent psychological constants from islam, is detrimental from an academic perspective. It disregards so many other factors at play other than the religion itself e.g. geography, local culture, economics, foreign policies, geopolitics, history etc. People and cultures are different, everywhere. Do you think most muslims practice their faith based on intense historical investigation and religious reading? And do you think that they come to the same conclusions? They don't. Most muslims get cherry picked info. They read a little, some don't, many gets lots of info from moderate imams, few get loads of material from radical imams. Some are Sunni, some are Shia, some left-wing like parts of the kurds, some are progressive like much of the youth in Iran. Many people have daily battles with the radical parts of islam all over the middle east. The Arab Spring was a strong testament to this. I have met many progressive muslims from all over the middle east over the years. Highly educated, well spoken. Many of them still cultural muslims whoms most fundamental problems with the west stems from the incessant and extremely detrimental foreign meddling in the middle east. Several countries in the middle east were pretty progressive before war tore them apart in the mid to late twentieth century. Proxy warfare between the US and Russia. CIA funding of assorted radicals up through the decades, coups that lead to theocracies. Israels wars that lead to a radicalisation of large parts of the muslim youth. And western alliance with the largest promoter of radical islam, Saudi Arabia. Furthermore the incredibly incompetent way the US war machine played out Shia against Sunnis, and therefore directly aided the creation of ISIS today. the list goes on. Watch the frontline documentaries on Iraq or Isis to get a gist of how catastrophic the western countries still act to this day. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/losing-iraq/ http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/losing-iraq/ All of these factors and more, have now created this radical, angry and war-damaged version of Islam, that now clashes increasingly with western values. My point is that i think it is extremely detrimental to focus on Islam as some sort of absolute culprit of the atrocious acts, rather than create an explanatory model with the myriad of factors spanning a century, that has made certain groups of people come this.

ars 12y ago

> Most muslim "anti-semitism" in the west today stems from a frustration with israels war policy. Not an inherent racial doctrine. That is 100% completely untrue. The evidence is that ordinary Egyptians who loath the Palestinians, and have a peace treaty with Israel STILL hate the Jews. Muslims are willing to tolerate Jews if the Jews are in the position of subordinate, but as soon as the Jew "lifts his head" as it were that tolerance vanishes (the Jews living in Iran is a great example of this).

kossTKR 12y ago
So what you are saying is that because parts of the Egyptian population, dislike palestinians but still hate jews, their anger must surely stem from inherent religious traits. That is just a bad chain of logic. Rather a the much more logical and broad explanation that _Israel is Egypts freaking neigbhoor_ and has been attacked by israel several times over the years. Off course the vast majority in Egypt will have a problem with jews after several wars. This is what i am talking about in my other posts. To create an explanatory model from one factor, religion, is pathetic, especially when you realize that these two groups of people has been neighboors at war. That the situation would be different if israel did not have such and incredibly bad relationship with the whole region.
- ars 12y ago
  Is it difficult to contort your brain into such backwards logic? First I notice you have no reply to what I said about Iran. Second, "has been attacked by Israel"? Really? Or perhaps, attacked Israel because they hate Jews so much? "Have been neighbors at war"? The last war was 41 years ago! That's a long time to hold on to hate. And yet somehow, the Jews in Israel do not hate the Egyptians. What makes them different? According to you they have a much better reason for it, considering things like the Yom Kippur war. Your convoluted logic is backwards and wrong. > That the situation would be different if israel did not have such and incredibly bad relationship with the whole region. It's bizarre how you try to somehow make their hate, Israel's fault.
  - kossTKR 12y ago