Israel / Palestine News Thread

[Twentyfirst]

On 9/29/2025 at 4:34 PM, BlueOak said:

Still a necessary war against the Axis powers of Iran, Russia, China etc, just executed with such a ham-fisted authoritarian approach, I don't think they could have done it any worse PR wise. It is like Israel has gone out of their way to make itself appear the evil villain here. I couldn't have written a script where they did a better job. A bit like Russia hitting civilians every week, only worse if that's at all possible, which apparently it is.

What a world we live in.

People ask me why the 90s were better. At this point I don't answer them.

Did you and your family fight in this "necessary" war that you speak of?

Or you just want others to die and kill for YOUR agenda 

[Twentyfirst]

2 hours ago, Breakingthewall said:

@Raze sorry for being so dumb. Then Jesus Christ was inherently a warrior who preaches violence. I was deluded about it. Ignore me, but anyway, thanks for the information. 

I'm not sure if you really believe your statements. Maybe yes. Interesting.

What's wrong with a religion that teaches you how to fight in war ethically and properly? 

The West could follow their own international war laws but they don't

[Twentyfirst]

2 hours ago, Breakingthewall said:

If a community of millions of people that is growing demographically at a very high rate has as its essential value the hatred of your community, preaches it in schools, do a party where everyone goes out into the street shouting if a bomb has been thrown at you, is allied with several neighboring countries that add up to hundreds of millions of inhabitants that have your annihilation as their political program, perhaps you could have a certain (paranoid) feeling of threat.

Your biggest threat is your own leadership and your own propagandized citizens. The West will fall by its own doing

The west has declined the past 20 years. Quality of life, economy, national debt, censorship, division and birth rates. Many things going wrong all at once. Who is at fault there? A muslim that wakes up gets in his car goes to work then comes home to his family living thousands of miles away from you?

Edited October 3 by Twentyfirst

[Nivsch]

[Ajay0]

On 10/1/2025 at 10:04 PM, zazen said:

I've pointed out to you the caste system of India (linked and reinforced via Hinduism) in which a entire group of people are literally seen as untouchable (1 in 5 Indians are Dalits - 200 million approx) - do I then go and conflate Hindusism as evil? Obviously not because I'm not retarded. 

Caste system in India is a feudal system similar to that in Europe, Japan and Korea. (Even now, European aristocrats tend to keep themselves distinct from the commoners and marry among themselves as a rule and pride themselves on their blue blood and breeding.) 

Also many european countries have a hereditary king or queen as head of state like the UK, which reflects the feudal past, unlike republican India.

The US which came into existence two centuries back was populated by poor immigrants of the european lower classes escaping tyrannical feudalism and exploitative capitalism in europe , and is consequently looked down upon by the european aristocratic classes as well.

The european-americans in turn, themselves looked down upon the African-americans languishing under slavery around them, even though both groups were christians and equal under constitutional laws. Many african-americans were lynched for superficial reasons or mere allegations.

The caste system has no sanction in the Vedas, the original Hindu scriptures which preaches the equality and fraternity of all human beings. Majority of the Vedic sages came from the lower economic groups or professions .

The Vedic sage, Satyakama Jabala, who composed portions of the Vedas, was the illegitimate son of a prostitute. He was taken as a disciple by his Guru on account of his character and honesty which the Guru perceived as signs of merit even though he was of illegitimate lineage. This shows that a meritocratic structure existed in earlier vedic times.

The caste system came up later on as a social system, in order to preserve, consolidate and develop knowledge systems of each profession. Universities were not wide-spread in ancient times, and it was easier for the father to teach his sons and nephews the technical details of his profession.

This enabled a certain specialisation of disciplines and consolidation of culture. For example, mathematics as in the numeral system, zero and basic mathematics used around the world commonly were developed in India.

However, an unfortunate side-effect of this was that higher castes adopted snobbish superiority complexes with respect to the lower castes. This is entirely out of ignorance of the basic teachings of equality and fraternity in the Vedas.

I am not an advocate of the caste system as it is obviously obsolete in today's world, but it had its relevance in ancient times as a practical system. In todays world however, you can choose any profession, and the best universities in the world teaching that course by virtue of enhanced transportation and logistics.

At present the caste system is considered obsolete in the Indian constitution designed by B.R. Ambekar who stemmed from the lower  castes, and many of the lower castes have quotas in education and employment under the public sector which has helped to develop the community exponentially.

Both the present prime minister and president of India have rose from the lower castes which shows the progress India has made in this regard.
 

[Breakingthewall]

7 hours ago, Twentyfirst said:

The west has declined the past 20 years. Quality of life, economy, national debt, censorship, division and birth rates. Many things going wrong all at once. Who is at fault there? A muslim that wakes up gets in his car goes to work then comes home to his family living thousands of miles away from you?

In the west nobody blames other cultures for our decaying, usually responsibility is assumed. The west is worried about Muslims for other reasons, for example the constant claims of clerics to grow in population in Europe to control the institutions and install the sharia

Edited October 3 by Breakingthewall

[Breakingthewall]

6 hours ago, Twentyfirst said:

What's wrong with a religion that teaches you how to fight in war ethically and properly? 

The problem is that ethically and properly includes expansionism

[Breakingthewall]

2 hours ago, Ajay0 said:

At present the caste system is considered obsolete in the Indian constitution designed by B.R. Ambekar who stemmed from the lower  castes, and many of the lower castes have quotas in education and employment under the public sector which has helped to develop the community exponentially.

The problem is that that is impossible in Islam, you can't consider obsolete anything in it because it supposedly is the direct word of God written by the hand of it's prophet, and that prophet is literally perfect. Anything that that prophet did is perfect, and if you say that anything is obsolete you are a blasphemous. And blasphemy is punishable by death in many Muslim countries nowadays 

[zazen]

11 hours ago, Breakingthewall said:

Paul of Tarsus teaches that the Mosaic Law (Old Testament) is no longer binding on Christians because Christ has fulfilled it and, with his sacrifice, opens a new covenant based on faith and grace, not on ritual norms. This is why Christians do not follow things like circumcision, dietary laws, or sacrifices. 📌 In summary: Jesus did not abolish the Old Testament in the sense of destroying it. What he did was surpass it and transform it into a New Covenant. The Old Covenant is understood as preparation, and the New Covenant is understood as fulfillment.

So, the old testament t is "old", the new is "actual".

From Chat GPT on the New Testament:

Slavery

Ephesians 6:5: “Slaves, obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling.”

1 Peter 2:18: “Slaves, submit yourselves to your masters, not only to the good and gentle but also to the harsh.”

War

Revelation 19:11–16: Christ rides a white horse, “judges and makes war,” his robe dipped in blood, striking down nations with a sword from his mouth.

Revelation 19:21: “The rest were killed with the sword that came from the mouth of the rider on the horse.”

Matthew 10:34: “Do not think that I came to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.”

Punishment

2 Thessalonians 1:8–9: Jesus will return “in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God… They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction.”

Matthew 10:34: “Do not think that I came to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.”

John 15:6: “If anyone does not abide in me, he is thrown away like a branch and withers; the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned.”

Revelation 21:8: “The cowardly, the unbelieving… will be consigned to the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death.”

Authority and submission

Romans 13:1–2: “Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God.”

Ephesians 5:22–24: “Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord… as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.”

1 Corinthians 14:34–35: “Women should remain silent in the churches. They are not allowed to speak, but must be in submission… for it is disgraceful for a woman to speak in the church.”

____

The full quote of Jesus on the horse:

''Now I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse. And He who sat on him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness He judges and makes war. His eyes were like a flame of fire, and on His head were many crowns. He had a name written that no one knew except Himself. He was clothed with a robe dipped in blood, and His name is called The Word of God. And the armies in heaven, clothed in fine linen, white and clean, followed Him on white horses. Now out of His mouth goes a [c]sharp sword, that with it He should strike the nations. And He Himself will rule them with a rod of iron. He Himself treads the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God.'' 

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Revelation 19%3A11-16&version=NKJV

GPT conclusion: The New Testament doesn’t command genocides like the Old Testament, but it spiritualizes war into eternal damnation for outsiders, calls Christ’s return a war on nations, and contains violent imagery that makes the Qur’an’s contextual battle verses look mild by comparison.''

_____

 The point is this doesn't automatically make Christianity inherently evil because of such verses. Firstly there's a difference between descriptions (historical accounts) and prescriptions. For those times if certain norms existed them being spoken about doesn't mean being endorsed outright but regulated rather than not regulated with no rules around such norms (war, slavery etc).

Secondly, you are either unaware of or leave out the fact of interpretation and jurisprudence which is a massive field on all religion. If Christians can reinterpret their “perfect scripture” to adapt to different times and contexts Muslims can too, and did. Saying Islam is frozen in time is just a stereotype of your bigoted worldview. The entire Islamic Golden Age - with its law schools, science, philosophy, and pluralism - was built on fiqh and reinterpretation. If Islam really froze in the 7th century that Golden Age wouldn’t exist.

They applied jurisprudence, reasoning, and adaptation to new contexts and knowledge they got from the Greeks, Persians, and Indians - rather than simply living by a literal reading of the Quran. Literalism is the issue with fundamentalism and Islamists like ISIS for example - but that doens't represent majority of Muslims world wide.

 

Edited October 3 by zazen

[zazen]

2 hours ago, Breakingthewall said:

In the west nobody blames other cultures for our decaying, usually responsibility is assumed. The west is worried about Muslims for other reasons, for example the constant claims of clerics to grow in population in Europe to control the institutions and install the sharia

Let me introduce you to right wing populism that scapegoats other cultures being brought into the West via migration that are blamed for causing such decay lol. But the cleric thing definitely is a issue that needs to be watched out for I agree - it's just not the cause of the decay and neither is it representative of most Muslims - but marginalization and ghettoization can lead to radicalization which perverts the religion to more fundamentalist ends.

Chat GPT comparing the Bible (Old and New) with the Quran:

1. War & Violence

Bible (OT): Commands genocides (Amalekites, Canaanites, Midianites). Kill men, women, children, even infants and animals (1 Samuel 15:3).

New Testament: Shifts war into apocalyptic vengeance — Christ returns “to judge and make war” (Revelation 19:11).

Qur’an: Allows war in self-defense (2:190), forbids transgression, commands peace if enemy inclines to peace (8:61).
👉 Qur’an is more restrained.

📌 2. Women

Bible (NT): Women must be silent in church (1 Cor 14:34), cannot teach men (1 Tim 2:12), must submit to husbands (Eph 5:22).

Qur’an: Men have a degree of authority (4:34), but women inherit, own property, and divorce — radical rights for the 7th century.
👉 Both patriarchal, but Qur’an gave more rights in context.

📌 3. Punishments

Bible (OT): Death by stoning for adultery (Leviticus 20:10), homosexuality (Lev 20:13), blasphemy (Lev 24:16), working on Sabbath (Exodus 31:15).

NT: Focuses less on law, more on eternal damnation (“lake of fire” Rev 21:8).

Qur’an: Corporal punishments exist (e.g. flogging for adultery, theft), but also calls for mercy, repentance, and feeding the poor as expiation.
👉 Harsh, but more options for mercy than OT law.

📌 4. Racism / Equality

Bible: OT is tribal (“chosen people”); NT universalizes faith but still accepts slavery. Verses used for centuries to justify racism.

Qur’an: 49:13: “No Arab over non-Arab, no white over black — only piety.” Last Sermon of the Prophet is explicitly anti-racist.
👉 Qur’an more egalitarian on race.

📌 5. Governance & Power

Bible (NT): Romans 13:1–2 tells believers to obey all governing authorities — used to justify monarchy, slavery, colonialism.

Qur’an: Emphasizes justice, consultation (shura, 42:38), and condemns tyranny.
👉 Qur’an more resistant to blind obedience.

✅ Overall Judgment

Bible: Endorses slavery, genocide, patriarchal subjugation, and obedience to empire.

Qur’an: Regulates harsh practices but consistently points toward justice, equality, and mercy, even if within a 7th-century framework.

👉 If you’re asking which text is more just, the Qur’an edges ahead in nearly every category except maybe gender (and even there, it granted women legal rights that the Bible didn’t).

[zazen]

@Ajay0  Nice and informative. I agree - its not totally scriptural but more of a social mechanism - which doesn't mean it doesn't come with its own downsides which it obviously does. Simply saying it's for organizing professional knowledge glosses over the injustices and baked in discrimination that easily would come from it.

That's why I wrote linked and reinforced via Hinduism ie not rooted in Hinduism itself per se. Hindu texts such as Manusmritia legitimized caste hierarchy. Hindu society embraced it as religous and as sacred order via their temples, rituals, and priests enforcing untouchability. Ambedkar and Bhakti saints criticized Hinduism precisely because caste had become a lived reality of Hinduism for most people. It being abolished via law doesn't erase the hangover of its discrimination today especially in rural India - similar to how ending the slavery and segregation in America didn't immediately end discrimination which takes time to overcome.

My main point as you can see in the comment was that all this doesn't make a religion inherently evil. Religion needs to be contextualized properly rather than just looked at literally - ironically the very thing that fundamentalists do and get called out for being extremists.

[BlueOak]

10 hours ago, Twentyfirst said:

Did you and your family fight in this "necessary" war that you speak of?

Or you just want others to die and kill for YOUR agenda 

I'm continually disgusted by people questioning my patriotism or desire to protect my own home. As if its some answer to anything that was said. 

It's a petty and weak comeback when you've got none.

Two powerful armed to the teeth global factions who compete with each other: This is the result of it. You don't get to pick and choose the results of warmongering choices, or where those outbreaks of violence happen, because it suits one agenda more than the other.

Edited October 3 by BlueOak

[Breakingthewall]

@zazen simply check the example in Nigeria. The half is Christian and the half is Muslim . Compare the conditions of women, culture, education, and art. It's absurd to deny that Islam is rigid at its foundation and Christianity is flexible at its foundation. 

Christianity can be misunderstood, but at its core, it's a spiritual religion. Islam is, at its core, a political system. Having been designed 1,400 years ago and supposedly being the literal word of God, it's completely out of step with the current situation, making it a deeply toxic ideology.

You can cite selected passages to compare the two religions, but it is absolutely clear that Christianity aims at the liberation of the spirit, while the Quran aims at submission. 

Edited October 3 by Breakingthewall

[Twentyfirst]

5 hours ago, Breakingthewall said:

In the west nobody blames other cultures for our decaying, usually responsibility is assumed. The west is worried about Muslims for other reasons, for example the constant claims of clerics to grow in population in Europe to control the institutions and install the sharia

You would live better under sharia. You would all be less of mentally ill degenerates

[Twentyfirst]

2 hours ago, BlueOak said:

I'm continually disgusted by people questioning my patriotism or desire to protect my own home. As if its some answer to anything that was said. 

It's a petty and weak comeback when you've got none.

Two powerful armed to the teeth global factions who compete with each other: This is the result of it. You don't get to pick and choose the results of warmongering choices, or where those outbreaks of violence happen, because it suits one agenda more than the other.

It's easy to call for war when you aren't the one participating in it. Forget all the destruction that comes as a result of your support

How does Iran, Russia, and China threaten you? What have they ever done against you? How are you even so sure that they are wrong and you are right? Maybe Iran/Russia/China are more just places than where you live? How do you know 100% for sure? You only want your side to win this rivalry because you think your side is the more just and honorable 

You just love to live in constant fear rather than live a full life.

Edited October 3 by Twentyfirst

[zazen]

3 hours ago, Breakingthewall said:

@zazen simply check the example in Nigeria. The half is Christian and the half is Muslim . Compare the conditions of women, culture, education, and art. It's absurd to deny that Islam is rigid at its foundation and Christianity is flexible at its foundation. 

Yes! Compare the material conditions which is something you overlook. Religions and how the people of those religions show up can be shaped by those conditions.

In Nigeria the South is mainly Christian and much more developed compared to the North which is majority Muslim - why? From a colonial legacy the British invested more in the coastal south where the port and capital (Lagos) is for trade and administration. More urbanization, schools and education etc. The South is also home to oil which makes up most of its exports and 50% of government income.

Boko Haram come from Northern Nigeria due to those conditions of rural poverty and grievances against the South which make them ripe for extremism. They are also designated a terrorist group by most Muslim countries including the OIC - Organisation of Islamic Cooperation. Clearly that shows you there is a nuance within Islam that needs to be taken into account which you clearly don't because it doesn't fit your bigoted narrative.

Uganda is a majority Christian country yet has some of the harshest anti-LGBTQ laws in the world pushed by evangelicals. Remember this meme: 

Context (material conditions) explains outcomes - not solely religious text. Evangelicals in US are also talking about stripping women and LGBT rights despite living in a developed country ie better conditions.

Indonesia's the largest Muslim majority country in the world with relatively high literacy and women in politics with a female president in the past. Evil Islamic Pakistan and Indonesia have had a female president before the US. Indonesia's on course to be the 4th largest economy in the world in the coming decades with a healthy growth rate. I thought Islam opposes and sabotages all of that? Nah, that's just your bigoted view of it.

3 hours ago, Breakingthewall said:

Christianity can be misunderstood, but at its core, it's a spiritual religion. Islam is, at its core, a political system. Having been designed 1,400 years ago and supposedly being the literal word of God, it's completely out of step with the current situation, making it a deeply toxic ideology.

You can cite selected passages to compare the two religions, but it is absolutely clear that Christianity aims at the liberation of the spirit, while the Quran aims at submission.

All religion is spiritual at its core. Christianity was political for over a thousand years also - papal states, inquisition, crusades, divine right of  monarchies. The New Testament had less rules and laws compared to the old one but the Church stepped in to make their own political frame work. Christianity looks “flexible” today because it was forced to reform by secular modernity and separation of church and state. Christianity had and still has both fundamentalists and reformists just as Islam has Sufi's and Wahhabists and every shade in between. That's too much nuance for you though lol you default to Black and white thinking rather than 50 shades of grey which is only reserved for Christianity to maintain your Eurocentric view of the world.

Muhammad was a statesman involved in wordly affairs - he managed disputes, drafted treaties, encountered and lead in warfare etc so naturally the politics of day to day life were spoken about and built upon. He was straddling the ''other world'' and this world. That doesn't mean there was no faith or spiritual insight involved that inspired him or those that followed him. Today you see Sadhguru being a busy body doing all kinds of things - do we call him just a mystic talking only about the other world? Do we say he's not purely spiritual or mystical because of his dealings in this world of form?

Or is it that you view pure spirituality as only when you simply exist in this blob of consciousness feeling all gooey, lovely and enlightened thinking your above the messiness of every day life and survival? And later concluding that anyone speaking on those realities isn't pure enough or is devoid of any form of spirituality? That's some liberal hippie shit son. I'm the bigot buster, the liberal delusionist dismantler, the spiral dynamic supremacist slayer.

Edited October 3 by zazen

[Breakingthewall]

@zazen yes, i remember that video. Imagine in Iran, would be funny. 

Iran and Afghanistan were countries taking off, culture was beginning to flourish, and there was more and more freedom. Islam arrived, and game over. Uganda has never taken off. Well, it's doing so now, and Ugandan women are very interesting, by the way.

Yes, Indonesia is growing economically, and other countries like Morocco too, but what culture can an Islamic country have where everything is haram? Can it have any? In Morocco, women can go out without hoods, although in some areas they are insulted. I don't know if it's prohibited in Indonesia. In the videos I've seen, everyone wears hoods, even though the temperature is 50 degrees. What human development can there be under these crazy rules? What's this obsession with covering women up? Are you comparing it to medieval Christianity? In the Middle Ages, Islam was more open than it is now. I suppose it's the Americans' fault. Islam is an ideology of oppression and prohibition. Why do you like that? Don't you think that killing people in France because they do a design of the prophet is crazy? When bataclán happened I heard some groups of Muslims in my city shouting Allah Akbar as a celebration. A Russian guy was there and told me: maybe it's time to take the Kalashnikovs from the locket. I thought he was quite right 

[Twentyfirst]

6 minutes ago, Breakingthewall said:

@zazen yes, i remember that video. Imagine in Iran, would be funny. 

Iran and Afghanistan were countries taking off, culture was beginning to flourish, and there was more and more freedom. Islam arrived, and game over. Uganda has never taken off. Well, it's doing so now, and Ugandan women are very interesting, by the way.

Yes, Indonesia is growing economically, and other countries like Morocco too, but what culture can an Islamic country have where everything is haram? Can it have any? In Morocco, women can go out without hoods, although in some areas they are insulted. I don't know if it's prohibited in Indonesia. In the videos I've seen, everyone wears hoods, even though the temperature is 50 degrees. What human development can there be under these crazy rules? What's this obsession with covering women up? Are you comparing it to medieval Christianity? In the Middle Ages, Islam was more open than it is now. I suppose it's the Americans' fault. Islam is an ideology of oppression and prohibition. Why do you like that? Don't you think that killing people in France because they do a design of the prophet is crazy? When bataclán happened I heard some groups of Muslims in my city shouting Allah Akbar as a celebration. A Russian guy was there and told me: maybe it's time to take the Kalashnikovs from the locket. I thought he was quite right 

All of this is about freedom? What is freedom? Do you even know?

[Breakingthewall]

3 minutes ago, Twentyfirst said:

All of this is about freedom? What is freedom? Do you even know?

Be able to go to the street without a burka without being killed 

[Twentyfirst]

11 minutes ago, Breakingthewall said:

Be able to go to the street without a burka without being killed 

Where will you get killed for not wearing a burka? And why do you always speak about women's rights but not mens rights? You know men have to wear modest clothing too? How much skin can you see shown from these elite Arab rulers?

I can't believe mods give me warnings for saying women are happier in the kitchen but you are allowed to run your filthy mouth on lies upon lies over and over and never stop with your idiocy. Btw whats your mom's only fans? I wanna jerk off and only have 5 dollars to spend. Your mom is statistically more likely to be on only fans than a girl getting killed for showing her hair. You hate muslim women? Why do you care if they are safe or not?

Your version of freedom is doing heroin by the corner store until you OD and die

 

Edited October 3 by Twentyfirst