Free Palestine simply means a sovereign Palestinian state separate from Israel, which Israel has rejected many times over the years, most recently in the Knesset vote in February and July 2024, opposing the establishment of a Palestinian state west of the Jordan River. Any time there was outside attempts to recognize Palestine as a state (e.g. through UN efforts) Israel responded with building more settlements in the West Bank.
I've come around on the idea of a Palestinian state.
Once they have a state, the Arabs in Gaza and the West Bank will finally have defined borders and a single sovereign. And history shows they can be relied upon to launch another genocidal war on Israel more or less immediately.
Then it will be a war between two nation-states, not a nation-state vs. an unaccountable terrorist organization that pretends to be a proper state when convenient.
The Israel vs. Palestine conflict will then fall neatly into the framework of Westphalian nation-states and when Israel proceeds to utterly defeat Palestine, demands their unconditional surrender, kills all who resist, annexes their territory, and forcibly re-educates any who remain (post-WWII style), it will all be 100% kosher according to customary international law.
On Oct. 7 the Arabs in Gaza creatively used all means available to them to kill every single human in Israel that they could reach. This includes airpower, i.e. the infamous paramotor assault.
If Israel learned from them and creatively used all means available to them to kill every human in Gaza that they could reach, this conflict would have been definitively resolved years ago and the accusations of genocide would actually be true.
But if y'all keep spuriously accusing Israel of committing genocide when they're not, and Israel is "doing the time" anyway, they might just decide to actually "do the crime". As I said, it would certainly resolve the conflict.
So good work! Keep it up! The more you repeat the lie, the more likely you are to turn it into truth.
This reminds me off this famous quote by Tony Hoare:
"There are two ways of constructing a software design: One way is to make it so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies, and the other way is to make it so complicated that there are no obvious deficiencies."
AI is a step change, and like any step change, it overshoots before it settles down. We're in that overshoot phase now. So yes, it's a bubble, and will burst when the high expectations doesn't match reality and economics, but it's not going away.
If Israel cannot coexist with its neighbours then why plant it in this particular area of the world in the first place? Why not take part of Germany, the country which actually slaughtered millions of jews. Why do the Arabs have to pay the price of something they're not responsible for?
Imagine the opposite: an Arab group was planted to occupy part of Europe, occasionally gets into wars with its neighbours, and builds one of the largest weapons arsenals in the world, including nukes. How would Europeans feel about that?
That is a completely different argument. I am responding to the people arguing Israel is an outlier/evil because it is an ethno state, should return to arbitrary borders, etc. I am pointing out all the people that say colonial European borders have cause an unstable middle east because they were drawn without consideration of ethnic/cultural tensions. Those people should then support that it is logical for Israel to want intentional borders/internal ethnic/cultural cohesion and that desire/structure is not immoral.
What a wonderful idea: "This part of the world is unstable with unsustainable ethnic tension due to the arbitrary borders created by colonizers. Let's ethnically cleanse part of this area and give to jews and put arbitrary borders around it. That will definitely not have consequences."
“Fight against those who do not believe in Allāh or in the Last Day and who do not consider unlawful what Allāh and His Messenger have made unlawful and who do not adopt the religion of truth [i.e., Islām] from those who were given the Scripture - [fight] until they give the jizyah willingly while they are humbled.“
Notice the four characteristics mentioned here (all of them must be satisfied):
- do not believe in Allāh or in the Last Day
- do not consider unlawful what Allāh and His Messenger have made unlawful
- do not adopt the religion of truth (doesn't necessarily mean Islam, since true Christianity and Judaism believe in one God)
- from those who were given the Scripture. That includes Muslims themselves by the way, since they were given a scripture. Elsewhere in the Quran when it refers to Christians and Jews it says "People of the scripture". In other areas it mentions "Those who were given the scripture", which includes Muslims.
What it essentially says: if you do not follow the law of the land, whether you are a Christian, Jew, or a Muslim, there are consequences. Every nation has laws, and if you break those laws you will be prosecuted. In this case it says those will have to pay a "fine".
I don't know Arabic, but I read the English differently. I see "fight against those who X, and those who B, and those who C" as different groups, all of whom one is supposed to fight against.
I find it quite hard to read this passage like you do and see this as evidence of equality of treatment between Muslims and non-Muslims. Even the translator interprets 'religion of truth' to mean Islam.
Plus I think in general you're ignoring the pretty hostile tone of this passage. The jizyah is explicitly intended to be a humiliation ("humbling"). I was skeptical, but I think this passages is strong evidence that the jizyah was intended to "discriminate and oppress" non-Muslims.
As apologetics what he's saying is complete nonsense. The jizyah has been interpreted by every islamic society as a tax on non muslims, not a fine for those who break the law. You could argue that the passage doesn't actually say that the purpose of jizyah is to humiliate people (humbling is different) or that islamic societies in practice didn't (typically) use it as a means of ridicule, but saying that actually it was just a fine is utter make believe.
Terrorists specifically target civilian or government targets to make a statement or a demand. Those Iraqis were targeting American soldiers. The term doesn't apply here, no matter how badly the occupier wants to impose it on those defending their country.
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