"Jihad": A few things don't add up...?

[Beachtastic]

I know it's early days and we don't have much info to go on about the killer at the Manchester synagogue. But this BBC news article is very confusing.

He's described as a "35-year-old British citizen of Syrian descent" who "was granted British citizenship in 2006 when he was around the age of 16" ... my maths is shit, but 2025 minus 2006 = 19...? Other articles says he was a minor when he was given citizenship.

Apparently he was "on police bail after being arrested on suspicion of rape at the time of the killings" but "was not charged with the offence."

His parents, understandably, have made a strong statement distancing themselves from his actions, but the article goes on to say:

A post on his father's Facebook page, which has been verified by the BBC, appears to praise the 7 October attack by Hamas.
... The post reads: "The scenes broadcast by the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades showing a group of fighters storming an occupation army camp with simple means, balloons and motorcycles, prove beyond any doubt that Israel is not here to stay.
"Men like these prove that they are Allah's men on earth, regardless of who leads them, they are the true compass for men confident in their victory, even if their resources are few."

It also says his father is a surgeon... and that "Jihad" was his birth name.

I'm not sure where to begin processing all this information, if it's true. Quite surprised to find it reported by the BBC to be honest.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c0q7y72kppgo

🙄

I think we've moved on from this "cool" thinking. Doesn't work.

Yes, this is how I feel too. There are soundbites and buzzwords (such as "genocide") that are quickly adopted and thrown around without reflection or close analysis. This makes it very easy for propaganda to dominate the narrative. (I am of course aware that me writing this is controversial, and hope that if anyone else bothers responding to this thread we won't go careening off into the usual bunfight about Gaza.)

Within my lifetime, we have gone from information very much being "cascaded from above" (via gatekeepers such as publishers and traditional broadcasting models with "jobs for the boys") to an absolute free-for-all when it comes to making sense of the world around us. Which is great: I can publish a book if I want to, and so can you. We can share our views globally at the touch of a button. Back in the day, if you wanted to do that you'd have to spend a few months photocopying and mailing, and even then the span of your influence would be limited.

This rapid change, like all human "progress", is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, hooray for this freedom of expression. On the other hand, WTF, terrifying. Over history, civilisations have collapsed because of environmental, social, political, and economic factors. This feels different, like an endgame where the conflict arises from the content of people's minds. The internet throws it all into the pot, like a crazy acid trip at a party full of strangers.

I can just see the Cosmic Joker laughing at this latest and most ingenious challenge to humanity, curious to see how the game is going to end this time and wondering how far we can get with it before kicking the jigsaw pieces all over the floor.

Yes, I agree. But it's disingenous to pretend that radical Islam does not post the most significant security threat to the UK. And in my view, over the past couple of years there are various ways it seems to be ramping up to involve people who wouldn't normally pay any attention to it (e.g. dear old pensioners hurling themselves at the police on behalf of Palestine Action).

I'm not really interested in America to be honest, crazy things always happen in America (guns etc!). But it does distress me to see the UK going mad.

I’d like to talk about radical Islamists vs moderate Muslims and where as a nation we think the line should become worrying.
Exactly. How can we do this while also respecting privacy and freedom? No one wants some kind of Stasi policing, but at the same time I'm sick of bracing myself for the next attack.

I listened to a commentator this morning who was highlight the same point. Namely, that out of a largely law-abiding population of four millions Muslims, there is a small percentage that are radical (for whatever reason) and are prone to acts of violence in the name of religion. And as the absolute numbers of that population increase, the absolute number of radical components do as well. (They are also not lone-wolf attacks as the Home Secretary had suggested.) However, unless the government admits that this is going on, it will not be addressed. You cannot solve a problem you won’t admit to.

Interesting the phrase moral duty

Countless threads on here have posts that are somewhat accusatory about 'what are you doing to show the government that you dont support Israel' and the narrative that everyone has a responsibility to raise this, alert people to the issue, say you're not standing for this blah blah blah

If you bring any nuance into that, or dont want to 'protest' or dont want to go along with the group think, you are certainly a baby killer. Not just on this site, many others of course.

And god forbid you do support Israel of course.

It strikes me that social media and people posting their truth all over the place is akin to the 'bloke in the pub' that you kept away from, he chuntered in the corner, unpleasant, bit mad, didnt make sense, thought he was your best mate

Anyone with any sense didnt give him eye contact or the time of day

Yet here we are with 'the bloke in the pub' equivalent being taken seriously, having lots of followers, is now an 'influencer', posts 'articles' of him or herself talking seriously about the issue, making wild plausible claims (plausible to some people)

I agree. Those who feel the same way about supporting Jews or Israel are afraid to express it because the other side shouts louder and are frankly, quite frightening.

That is what I meant about social media and propaganda. As OP said in a previous post, pensioners have started to show up at these marches (as an example of an unusual demographic) and I see that as an outcome of this sense of “duty” which is in turn driven by incomplete or incorrect information about a conflict in the Middle East.

Edited: The ‘bloke in the pub’ is now omnipresent and media outlets are very much a part of it.

So do you want them to announce he was definitely influenced by radical Islam before the evidence is available to them? Is that the sort of news we want where they make it up?

Dh is Arab and I lived in his home country for over ten years and neither of us have ever heard of someone called Jihad.

The thing is, I can just about cope with a tiny percentage of people being nutters, even violent nutters. What I'm finding difficult over the past couple of years is this slavish cult following that has arisen since 7/10, Brits taking to the streets to chant for the intifada and so on. Intimidating Jewish people. I never expected to see this happen in my lifetime, especially not here in the UK, and I wonder who is pulling the strings.

I work with a guy called Jehad, I don't think it's THAT uncommon. Not common in Pakistani and Bangladeshi communities but this article dates back to 2018 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-42009219

I was not surprised to hear that he was on bail for rape at the time. Joan Smith's research makes a compelling argument that the biggest indicator of terrorism is not a particular religious or political ideology, but a history of domestic violence. Her book "Home Grown, how domestic violence turns men into terrorists" is excellent.

The reasons for the phenomenon you describe are quite complex I think. On the one hand, such people are showing an extreme form of ‘empathy’ (I’ve read instances where it’s referred to as suicidal empathy), driven by a strong desire to be seen as kind or ‘progressive’.

It’s a sort of movement / ideology that’s been in the works for some time and as to what caused it? Some form of misplaced ‘spiritualism’? It coincides with the sort of thinking thats often called Woke, which for some, is almost an ideology. I think people caught up in that will believe what they chose to believe despite being shown incontroversial evidence to the contrary, even though the latter might not be fashionable not fit the popular narrative.

On the other hand, there are bad actors who take advance of such groups / people and use them to achieve their own ends. That’s at least how I’ve rationalized why 65 year old Jenny from down the street is getting arrested in a Pro-Palestinian march in Trafalgar Square.

Are you familiar with the Asch conformity experiment (1951)? It's just occurred to me that it might be relevant, too.

Male US college students were sat in a group and asked to compare lines on a card. They just had to choose the two that were the same length -- a simple question with an obvious answer. But what each participant didn't know was that everyone else in the room apparently taking the test with him was in fact a stooge. All the others had secretly been trained to give the wrong answers.

Under these conditions, three-quarters of participants gave at least one incorrect answer, aligning with the rest of the group. This is usually taken to show that we prefer to socially conform than stick to what we know is right. But in post-study interviews, subjects described doubting themselves during the experiment.

I've noticed it myself in online disagreements: when everyone is telling me how wrong and bad I am, I do feel doubt, shame and a kind of fear. I suppose "belonging" is important to us in a fundamental way probably connected in our distant past with survival, like birds flocking together or a shoal of fish.

I just got curious to see if anyone had replicated the Asch experiment more recently, i.e. in the internet era.... and sure enough, have found this interesting article from 2023. The whole thing is interesting, but includes this:

This finding adds a new layer to our understanding of conformity, suggesting that human behavior in group contexts is not solely driven by rational, self-interested calculations but is also significantly influenced by the desire to align with social norms.

Expanding the scope of Asch’s work, the study also ventured into the realm of political opinions. The researchers found a conformity rate of 38%, indicating that social influence extends beyond simple perceptual tasks to the more complex territory of beliefs and opinions.

This extension is particularly relevant in our current era, where political discourse is increasingly polarized and influenced by group dynamics. The findings suggest that the social environment can significantly shape political views, raising important questions about the formation of public opinion and the role of social conformity in political decision-making.

Another intriguing aspect of the study was its exploration of the relationship between personality traits and susceptibility to conformity. Contrary to what one might expect, the research found that traits like intelligence, self-esteem, and the need for social approval were not convincingly related to conformity. The only exception was ‘openness’ from the Big Five personality traits, which showed an inverse relationship with conformity.

This challenges some traditional assumptions about the types of personalities that are more likely to conform and suggests that a willingness to entertain new ideas and experiences might actually buffer against social pressure.

neurosciencenews.com/asch-social-conformity-modern-25290/

Very interesting @Beachtastic

That was an interesting read (I wasn’t familiar with it, thank you for sharing). It certainly adds another layer on to the mosaic of reasons.

The “willing suspension of disbelief” also comes to mind and there are themes of that in the original study; not to stray from the topic but in the debate on gender ideology, I think the same phenomenon exists. Many, in particular public officials and entire governments have been willing to call men women just because certain men said they were women, with disastrous consequences for women. That again speaks to a desire to conform at any cost (or out of a fear to not offend…(who??)), despite knowing the reality to be to the contrary.

It’s a depressing mess.

He just murdered a bunch of people in a synagogue ffs.

Ok,
But what's interesting about the evolution of the phrase "stochastic terrorism" (stochastic just means random) is that as it became more about harmful speech than the random act itself, what it meant got very confused...

America, where this use originated, saw an organised attempt to overthrow the government (Jan 6) and prior to that a bubbling up of very out there views, QAnon, political violence, vaccine scepticism. And a huge uptick in racism online and violence offline. But there wasn't any clarity about where the lines meaning in some circumstances the reaction made things much worse. So attempts to shut down (dangerous) misinformation about the COVID vaccine meant that Joe Rogan and his entire audience were driven further to the crazy. Meanwhile those on the left with genuine concerns about racism/trans phobia etc found it harder to distinguish genuinely unpleasant opinions with only different opinions. People who had grown up with Fox news telling them Liberals wanted to oppress them saw left wing attempts to deal with stochastic terrorism as proof the left was trying to oppress them. It provided succour to the "battle of good and evil" speech that people like Musk promote. Everything got more polarised.

There are undoubtedly people who use the conflict in the middle east as an excuse to be anti-Semitic. (The fact that the killer in this case was arrested for rape suggests he did not actually give a shit about women's well being, so the "women and children" being killed line falls a bit flat). However, without debating the conflict itself, there are a LOT of people who are upset about Gaza because they are seeing images of flattened buildings and dead children. That's a normal human reaction, it's not anti-Semitism in itself or liberal weakness/naeivity. There is such a thing as anti-Semitism just as there is such a thing as racism. But that doesn't mean everyone upset about Gaza, or upset about small boats is an anti-Semite or racist. If you go down that line then it becomes harder to persuade people that actual racists are racist (eg Tommy Robinson). You don't have to agree with someone to think their views are reasonable or if not reasonable within acceptable limits.

The other danger is that it pushes people further into extremes. Not just Islamic extremism. The idea that "the Jews control the media" has been a trope on the right for a very very long time. I think Grok started inserting it into conversations after Elon reprogrammed it to be more right wing. Its a lie. But it's a lie given extra succour if people perceive politicians/the media being pressurised to talk about Gaza less under the argument it's causing anti-Semitism.

Incitement to violence isnt the same as being unpleasant. There are a lot of very broad generalisations about Islam and Muslims on this thread for example. I find some of them quite unpleasant as well as inaccurate. But I don't know if I'd go as far as saying they shouldn't be said. I don't think that solves anything. I think also if you start understanding things in those terms it's harder to listen to opposing views at all. Not all opposing views are equal..some are just wrong and we should be able to say so. But I find it's easier if I focus on whether something is true / if the person talking is trying to be truthful. The really problematic people become more easy to spot then. Because there are bad faith actors. And the best way of dealing with that (when it.doesnt cross over into incitement to violence) is by pointing out the dishonesty.

@persephonia Yes, I can see that the notion of "stochastic terrorism" can easily just become a way of imposing censorship and/or driving people even madder.

Re truth, my anxiety comes from the state of the CITME forum in the immediate aftermath of 7/10 and continuing for at least 18 months. It would not be exaggerating to say that there was a visible campaign of malicious disinformation that dominated the forum, such as saying the victims were killed by the IDF in a false flag exercise. (The threads seem to have been deleted now; I do wonder if MN got wise to the dangers of spamming etc.) This, together with the way the UK marches were organised at the same time as the attacks, looked very much like a coordinated exercise.

The resulting ferocity now directed towards Israel and the Jewish community doesn't seem likely to evaporate any time soon, even if some kind of peace deal is struck in the ME.

Some people who tell lies are bad actors; others just have poor critical appraisal skills when filtering their Insta/X feed... and therein lies the problem, really, because the algorithms will be set up to feed everyone plenty more of whatever they expect to see, and Hamas have exploited this.

There is no answer to this, I am just musing out loud in a completely pointless way 🤔 and hoping that by this time next year things will be calmer. We will just have to wait and see...

He could be mentally ill, he could have a personal issue with someone in the synagogue. Nothing wrong with opening your mind accepting the obvious isn't always the answer and waiting a very short time for actual facts. Of course some people aren't actually interested in facts

@TheignTand his six mates in custody?

@Beachtasticthats a good post. Most people I converse with on here (Jewish or not) were driven off that board after October 7th for not sharing the same hive mind.

Thank goodness for the hidden boards- although even they were attacked regularly.

Also if you ‘have a personal issue with someone’ do you plough over the first person you can find, stab others and wear a false but appeared to be ‘bomb vest’.

Sometimes it just is what it looks like.

I think as information came out it became clear that the police were investigating a terrorist motivation and that was by far the most likely explanation for what happened. I just don't think the media should be pressurised to jumping to conclusions immediately because there are sometimes alternative explanations. I would rather the BBC for example stuck to the known facts rather than doing social media style conjecture. In the longer term, jumping the gun would undermine trust faster than being slower than Twitter.

Yes, I think I lasted about 18 months... it was hideous, wasn't it?! Apart from being horrified by all the outrageous lies (never retracted, even when proven obviously fake and crazy), I got fed up being chased around other forums by some of the nastier posters and, the minute they popped up anywhere, seeing my posts deleted for no reason that I could fathom. It was hard not to feel paranoid and aware of some kind of orchestrated propaganda controlling the narrative. I deleted my long-standing MN profile as a result. Recently I sort of cautiously crept back in, and was relieved to find that things seem to be more under control. But I can't help feeling that something similar has happened on the streets of the UK, and that it is not easy to reverse such damage. Looking back on the CITME forum, they must have deleted thousands of threads. In real life, actions cannot be retracted.

@persephoniaactually I agree. But when social media is posted in real time we could see him. Everything works so fast now that I bet Twitter etc knew where he lived before the police.
I don’t know the answer. And it doesn’t help.