Holy Land, next Europe and America are next

[WereNext]

According to the Israeli PM. Do you believe this? And if you do, what's your background in geopolitics, level of education and religious belief. Does Hamas = Isis? Or are Hamas the equivalent of the mafia?

As much as I abhor the bombing in Gaza, is this realistic, that we protest and hope that we are not next?

And is the deterioration of western, Christian values a result of our vulnerabilities? Israel attacked, and Russia and China muscling us up on that and have taken their chances because we, the west, ARE weak. ??

😫

Well please start your own thread, instead if derailing existing ones and bringing in your prejudices. The three Abrahamic faiths are anti homosexuality, as is written in their religious texts. You don't need to be orthodox or evangelical.

Bit rich coming from you.

And you’d know all about prejudice.

Only one of the three Abrahamic religions doesn’t recognise same sex relationships in any form.

And don’t understand how this is a derail, many of us are horrified to see so much support for an Islamic movement that believes in neither equal rights for women or gay people.

do you mean support for Palestinian people ?

are you perhaps mixing the support you are seeing for 1000s of innocent Palestinians (who are Muslim and Christian by the way) with support for Hamas?

there is a big difference but easily done as Israel, despite all their intelligence assets can’t seem to distinguish them either

Please explain?

Well to be fair it is somewhat difficult when poll after poll reveals majority support for Hamas amongst the residents of Gaza. Hopefully they will wake up to the fact that Hamas is their enemy.

I'm saying you're talking like you've never attempted to derail a thread.

It was a derail because it was a deflection. We were talking about homosexuality in Israel and the poster tried to defend Israel by implying Muslims in Tower Hamlets are homophobic. That isn't remotely relevant to the discussion. In her further posts she is highlighting her Islamophobia further, by aligning Muslims in Tower Hamlets with Hamas.
And Re same sex marriages, I don't know anywhere in Torah, Bible or Quran that endorses same sex marriages. In fact I think the Bible says its an abomination? (Not sure what words other two scriptures use). Of course on the ground you'll be able to find members from each faith that will perform it, but that does not mean that it is 'accepted' universally within that faith.

Honestly I don't ever attempt to derail, I find it really annoying when posters do that. However I'm happy to proven wrong and will apologise if that is the case.

A very valid point, Esme, and nor is it restricted to issues over Israel (but then neither is the thread title)

You only had to see the howls of outrage from the usual posters when Shamima Begum was refused a return to the UK - a decision which has been judged legal again and again, but which enrages those who value virtue signalling above safety

EsmaCannonBall, But then you have to add in the racism and hypocrisy too. So someone of colour is far more likely to be a terrorist, a white person would be mentally ill. It would simply never be deemed acceptable what has been happening to the Palestinians if they were white and non Muslim.

The point was made that Israel is not a homogenous country and that pockets of homophobia exist. Well no shit Sherlock. That applies to any country, particularly those who harbour pockets of religious extremists including Britain.

And re same sex marriage, there is not one single Muslim majority country (out of over 50) that recognises this. The State of Israel (the single Jewish state) recognises same sex relationships.

@feralunderclass

I wrote a looong post akin to a research paper but lost it! 😓

I am very sorry you're feeling re-traumatised by the images coming from Gaza. It seems whoever spends time in Palestine gets PTSD. There was another poster too @HeidiInTheBigCity who said that she was re-traumatised by what she saw on the news.
It's so so sad and I can't begin to imagine what the Palestinians must have been living even before the current genocide. Atrocious.

Please keep talking and sharing your experience.

Like Elvis said "Truth is like the sun. You can shut it out for a time, but it ain't goin' away."

Last nights question time was reassuringly measured. It’s not unreasonable to want a ceasefire but these are the reasons why it’s not a good idea.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001sgcv
from about 35 minutes in.

@Lamelie

I’m sure the civilians being on the brink of being starved to death and bombed as we speak in Palestine will be comforted by the measured response by the worlds superpowers. All for a good cause!

@Green777 radio 4 now from about 13.20 journalist Isabel Young in the well equipped Hamas tunnels.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001sdvl

I was asked by Saudi was a nasty country. Do we really need to expand on that? I thought it was obvious - princesses held without trial when they try to escape, murders with body chopped into parts of a journalist, women's rights nothing like those given to women in Israel, US, UK. No elections.

All the organisations like Amnesty have done a lot of work on Saudi.

I would be very surprised if MN took a view that suggesting the freedom of Western democracies was better than regimes where women have few rights is some kind of illegal post.

I absolutely understand that under some religions women (wrongly) think they are protected eg men allowed 4 wives came from the days when women might be left without welfare benefits as men move from one woman to another 1000 years + ago; so a religion saying take up to 4 wives but you must financially provide for them is in a sense in its day (a very very out dated day) was to help not hurt women. However that system i s utterly awful. To say you need the word of two women in court to match that of one man kind of sums it up and why thankfully in the UK was are allowed to say we prefer our parliamentary democracy to regimes like Saudi, Iran never mind North Korea and Russia - all enemies of the UK (except when we want Saudi oil money I suppose when we seem in the UK prepared to make our bed with those whose views we dislike).

Just going back to the original post question
As much as I abhor the bombing in Gaza, is this realistic, that we protest and hope that we are not next?

Have you watched the son of a Hamas founding leader, Hassan Yousef, describing the global threat that Hamas poses, and telling us not to be so fucking stupid?

He's been trying to warn us for years how dangerous they are.

And let's face it, he should bloody well know. His father is still leading Hamas.

Since I suspect people can't be arsed watching videos, here's a transcript:

There are a bunch of movements coming forward in the West, angry in the streets, protesting. Some call themselves “Pro Palestine”; some call themselves “Free Palestine”; others say “End occupation!”

What occupation are you talking about? Do you mean end Israel, and give Hamas what they want – give Hamas weaponry, territory, soldiers, army… so they can mess more with the global security? Are you totally blind? How can’t you see the things in coming between the West and Israel, and how can’t you see the violence and the brutality of the Hamas movement?!

Or it’s your hatred – you have nothing to do with Palestine. You’re just projecting hatred and inflicting emotional pain on the Jewish people as they mourn a modern-day Holocaust.

Do you think this is how you help?

Palestine! There is no such thing as Palestine. Palestine what? Arafat Palestine? PLO Palestine? PA Palestine? Hamas Palestine? Islamic Jihad Palestine? What Palestine are you protesting for? You have no idea what you’re talking about.

I am being emotional here. I have the right to be emotional, because I speak on behalf of the children. As a Palestinian child, as a child of the Land, I quality to talk about the subject; but you? – you have no idea what you’re talking about. You’ve never been there. You did not live the pain of that Land.

So what are you protesting against, or about? What is your problem?

Let me be clear: this war will go the way we want it to go. Your opinion doesn’t matter. Even if you were a majority, you don’t matter, not in this war. It’s not your business. You can protest against your politicians in London, in Paris, everywhere… but in the Middle East, we deal with business Middle East style.

We are going after Hamas leaders, and we’re going to kill all of them. And nobody can get in the way. Those are criminals, those are terrorists. They have lots of blood on their hands. Hamas prisoners in Israeli prisons must be executed. We are going to destroy Hamas’ infrastructure; and that’s the answer to their brutality. There is no way around it.

As you can see, I’m not politically correct. I’m not your type. And I will not be. This act of Hamas did not only bring the wrath of Israel against Gaza; it brought the wrath of God. And you will see God in action.

There are many more videos with him on YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=mosab+hassan+yousef
and he is always very clear that we in the West are stupidly naive about just how dangerous they are and just what the scope of their ambitions is.

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There are many academic studies that discuss whether or not Israel mustadopt the security measures it does in order to keep its people safe, OR are these measures there to demarcate Israelis from Palestinians and punish them? The vast majority point to the latter.
Well that's very nice for fancy academics to say. I'd suggest that 7 October proved Israel was not just being paranoid.

And from 7 October onwards the whole world has seen that Palestinians need protecting from the Israel’s collective punishment.

This act of Hamas did not only bring the wrath of Israel against Gaza; it brought the wrath of God. And you will see God in action.

What a load of gobbledygook 😂 What we are seeing in action is bloodthirsty morons, hellbent on a revenge of their own making.

That's an odd use of "of their own making."

I agree the wrath of God stuff is bonkers, but I don't think we can judge the whole situation from a sort of liberal social worker point of view.

@roste How can you say that given the vile, murderous, barbarian and inhumane acts of terrorism committed on October 7? My god, it is hard to comprehend that human beings can be responsible for such heinous acts.

Extremely hard, in fact impossible, to understand why the IDF are allowed to get away with such barbarism themselves.