Hamas ‘death culture’ beyond comprehension, says founder’s son

Thank you for sharing. I find the actions of Hamas on 7/10 alone were more than enough to convince me that they have no place in Gaza (or elsewhere).

I wish he would speak more about why people in Gaza are tempted to join/partake in such terrible acts (both the planning and/or the acts). He must have such an insight into how they recruit people. I’ll keep looking as he may have spoken about this and I’ve not found it yet.

I’ve seen many interviews with Mosab and I love his passion and how he is dedicated to exposing the evil of Hamas. The death cult vibe is very strong among Hamas members and radical Islamists. Mosab himself was beaten and raped by them, the very group he belonged to and was supposed to be protected by.

Yes. Why do you think Israel was created where it is? Why does Netanyahu cite the scriptures in his speeches?

Israel declares itself as a "Jewish and democratic state", meaning the religion informs its actions as a democracy. The Old Testament, in case you hadn't noticed, is about the building of a Jewish nation through violence. All nations were built with violence, but only some view those wars as ongoing.

To over-simplify: Hard-line Muslim authorities see themselves as carrying out God's sacred command to make the whole world Muslim, eliminating Islam's enemies. Israel sees itself as carrying out God's sacred command to make historical Canaan the Jewish homeland, wiping out the 'Amalek'. It's unstoppable force vs immovable object.

I realise the majority (?) of Israelis would rather forget about ancient wars and get on with living in the modern world. So would the majority of Muslims. The zealots wield a lot of power, though, and drag their peoples along with them.

What is meant, but some are too short to say in succinct terms is that the CREATION of modern Israel is the cause of Hamas and co.
The definition of being " anti Zionist" is to be against the existence of Israel.

No matter how many try and complicate the meaning of Zionism, this the meaning of ANTI Zionism.

The non existence of Israel would only mean that the Islamists could fully concentrate on fighting each other in order to try and impose their version of how the Middle East should live under and relate to Islam.
I mean, Lebanon, Syria, Kuwait, Iran, Iraq and countless other near and Middle Eastern nations have long histories of intra faith fighting.

It's the fact that Israel is the only country in that region with little cultural adherence to Islam that is the problem for it and which makes it a shared target for Islamist groups which hate each other.

There are very large and influential Lebanese and Syrian communities all over the Anglo Caribbean and Latin America that for nigh on 150 years ran away from those countries due to conflict.

Jamaica, a country of 95% African non or hardly mixed Black people had a Middle Eastern descent Prime Minister before an unambiguously Black one.

The notion that without Israel, the Middle East couldn't start a ruckus even in a coffin is asinine.

Just like Europe, the Middle East loves a ruck.....to put it coarsely.

That seems to come with having so many nations and subcultures in a relatively small area of the world....just like Europe.

You're kidding me. You're going back to the time of the Old Testament?!

In Jewish belief, God commanded Joshua's conquest of the lands of Canaan to create Israel. The wars the Israelites waged on these lands is called milchemet mitzvah: holy war.

One of those lands was Philistia, where Palestine is now.

Prior to attacking an enemy, a Jewish army must offer peace. If that offer is not accepted, however, the Torah mandates that every male should be killed and the women, children, and livestock should be taken as booty.

And this only applies to wars with non-Canaanite nations.

The seven nations of Canaan–men, women, and children–should be completely wiped out if they do not accept the terms of peace offered to them.

(The last three paragraphs are pasted from a search I made to check that I remember correctly.)

There is specific mention of a people called the Amalek or Amalekites, who are the Israelites' arch enemy and must be wiped off the face of the earth for all eternity. Amalek is not necessarily a nation: it could be taken to mean Philistines/Palestinians, some extinct and forgotten tribe, or any persistent enemy of Israel.

Netanyahu said "You must remember what Amalek has done to you, says our Holy Bible. And we do remember."

Scholars argue about whether Palestinians are Amalek, but it's pretty ignorant to claim Jewish people have never waged 'holy war'. What did you think the Old Testament was all about?

Netanyahu has been a disaster, but at the same time I wouldn't want to be in his shoes.

The time for "mea culpa" may come, but it's not now when Israel is still deeply embroiled in a bitterly cruel conflict.

I think the key difference is the Germans did the whole mea culpa for 50 years or so after. That's the difference between them and Israel. All I ever see in TV interviews is various Israeli generals and mouthpieces doubling down on 'We are right and everyone else is wrong'. Regrettably, I can barely stand listening to them now.

Maybe in time they'll see the wisdom of humility and repentance but truthfully all I see is every rebuke brings howls of antisemitism. Like children putting their fingers in their ears saying Lalalala we cant hear you.

So much of this seems to be about keeping Netanyahu out of prison for as long as possible. We live in an era of narcissistic leaders who put self before everything and everyone else. It's a strange time to be alive.

Yes you can spot the people that have swallowed the white settler bollocks straightaway.

Yes, this too! I read over and over again on MN how Palestinian lives are "discounted" because they are "brown" (unlike, errrrmmmm, the population of Israel...?! 🤔). Again, it's that colonial thing.

I think it is underpinned by racism. The racism of low expectations. Its all wrapped up in the fetishization of this conflict.

But its also a little bit insulting, and dare I say it, racist, to paint Palestinian agency out of this. As if they are helpless in the face of the powerful 'white' imperialists.

I reject it. Palestinian decisions have got Palestinian people where they are, as much as Israeli decisions.

It just proves the point of the thread: that Hamas are presenting themselves as dear little freedom fighters who only want peace and justice, and whole swathes of people are sucked into this... partly through over-projection of their own historical grievances, and partly because the Western mindset just cannot compute what's actually driving Hamas.

Again writing Palestinian agency out of the whole thing.

Why do they do this?

Does Palestinian leadership have no part of the blame for the situation they are currently in?

Given that Gaza has been firing rockets at Israel for years, and carrying out terrorist attacks on Israel at every opportunity (7 Oct was just their "big hurraaah" 😔), I'd gently suggest that border controls were a pretty fucking good idea.

'They continued to control their borders and bomb them - that’s hardly leaving them in peace'

Egypt controls its border too. And?

You think terrorists wants to live in peace?

So why did they go to war against them to remove them? What was the aim of the war that the Arab League declared on the new state of Israel?

If, as you say, they didn't wish to remove them, then why not just declare their own state and start building a future for their children?

And the use of the german nationalist/nazi word lebensraum? What is your motivation there?

Unfortunately I have noticed that the most vocal pro-Palestine voices in Ireland are the standard champagne socialists and a bit hard of thinking. They tend to be young and quite privileged, or work in the arts, media, civil service where wrongthink on various issues is a hanging event. Which is ironic, given that Hamas would hang them all in a heartbeat, especially the 'queer' ones.

The rest of the Irish population are quietly or less quietly horrified by the slaughter of civilians by Israel. Israel has forever stained its honour and reputation in the world and if they thought they were hated before, they will be loathed for generations now. Prior to the current massacre most right-thinking people would have quietly supported Israel in defending their borders. Instead the current government allowed the Israeli equivalent of the British 'gammon' to rage unchecked seizing land and murdering farmers.

For what it's worth, I agree with the article that you shared OP and I think he's an important voice in this arena. I think Israel have been utter fools to behave so deplorably. Utter, utter fools. They walked straight into the PR trap Hamas set. Now bored, lost, overindulged 'folx' all over the world have ended up cheering for a death cult.

Hamas isn’t the only organisation to deliberately use children in war - I have images in my head of various conflicts with armed childen

and often the children are easy to recruit - one story that stayed with me is that of a 9 year old child who had grown up outwith Hamas - but joined them when his best mate was gunned down by an Israeli soldier for no clear reason

Give that the UN attempted to partition the land for Jewish and Arab Palestinians, and the Jewish accepted and became Israel, while the Arab did not accept and instead immediately went about trying to destroy Israel? They weren't agitating for more land, they were attempting to completely remove Jews from the land, entirely. A genocide, or ethnic cleansing- was what was intended.

That's completely ahistorical nonsense. There had always been a jewish minority in Palestine and the Arab nations expressed no intention to "completely remove" them. Although obviously they didn't support the mass immigration of a group dedicated to Zionist separatism or the massively inflated size of the land given them to create Lebensraum for their future generations.

The Arab nations simply wanted the British to fulfil their mandate, as had been done in the other ex-Ottoman territories, of creating the structures for a single unitary state representing all its citizens.

They continued to control their borders and bomb them - that’s hardly leaving them in peace. Honestly! Would you be cool with not being allowed in or out of a small landmass, not being allowed to have your own port or airport, being bombed intermittently - that’s hardly being left alone.

And the same people doing this murdered and displaced your grandparents generation, AND your parents generation and occasionally come along to blow up some kids playing on the beach. If you don’t want terrorist attacks don’t terrorise generations of people or you will turn traumatised people into terrorists.

I previously shared information on a documentary Tantura with Israeli soldiers who admit on tape that they massacred people when they arrived to Palestine in 1948 - they shot, incinerated and raped the local villagers. These horrific acts were committed by traumatised people who survived the holocaust - living through horrific events changes the brain and how it thinks. Treating people as less than won’t endear them to you, it just perpetuates the cycle of violence. The majority of adults in Gaza have grown up with ptsd from previous bombings, now there is another generation of kids suffering the same fate - this helps Hamas recruit!