Fair enough. Maybe I should have written ‘when an intolerant branch of a religion is allowed to directly control the whole society’.
If there is any sense, the Iranian response should draw a line under this latest episode. Israel killed generals. Iran fired back, directly not via proxy, but mostly lower level shite weaponry that they knew would be shot down. Still, they sent enough that some got through, but the deterrent they wanted to establish was for Israelis to experience weaponry directly from Iran, and to have to spend +/- $1Billion to shoot it down.
In the grand scheme of things it was just Sabre-rattling, but still a warning to say we’ve got a lot more that we can do to you.
Unfortunately, I don’t think there is any sense, at least not in the Netanyahu government. He has already strained relations with America by doing what he wants in Gaza. That will only encourage him all the more to ratchet things up with Iran.
He probably wants a direct strike on Iran’s nuclear program. I don’t know the details, but I would imagine that is spread out, and deep underground, and therefore extremely difficult to get at. To try would require a concerted effort, into Iranian airspace, that would certainly escalate things, perhaps to a large-ish regional war.
Netanyahu would get his reckoning with Iran. He would stay in power and the corruption stuff against him would probably fade away. The atrocities against the Palestinians in Gaza would be folded in to a wider conflict, and therefore not be the headline news they are now. And America, reluctantly if wider war with Iran is being waged, will be dragged into it. And by extension probably the UK and other allies too.
In other words, there are a LOT of reasons why Netanyahu might want to ramp this up, and good sense, tragically, might be in short supply.
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aka Neoliberalism
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Religion needs to be made illegal
My issue is with the word “allow”. What do you mean by that in a practical sense? That’s more a rhetorical question than a real one. Like I said there are vanishing few examples of people straight up voting in a loss of freedoms of any sort as when they happen as they have with Islamic theocratic revolutions, they were taken from them by force by a relatively small number of highly motivated people.
While you may have a point, I think it’s a bit harsh to use a situation where the religious figure was the victim, no?
Wasnt the perpetrator religiously motivated?
The word allow refers to the passivity of a large majority of the population, who don’t react when a bunch of fanatic people are threatening to take over. It doesn’t matter if it’s by vote or by force, passivity of the majority is always at the root of the rise of fanaticism.
@cynicaloldgit is right: it can be fanatical neoliberals, or indeed fanatical people in all factions of life. So, in the name of compromise, I’ll drop the word religion. Make it ‘when an intolerant bunch of fanatics is allowed by a passive majority to directly control the whole society’.
A priest is attacked, so religion should be made illegal? Hmmm.
An absence of religion does not result in peace and harmony. History shows numerous wars and atrocities have been committed that were nothing to do with religion. It’s happening today too. Putin attacked Ukraine. Nothing to do with religion. He felt threatened by a free and democratic country on his border. Should those things be banned too?
And China - a nation that is officially atheist by policy, is killing the Uighurs and locking them up in concentration camps. Not very enlightened of them. They’ve also got their elbows out and are taking control of the South China Sea, bullying their smaller neighbors, dredging up new man-made islands, setting up military bases, and probably spoiling to attack Taiwan.
I object to the mischaracterization that if we could just leave religion behind, peace and harmony would break out. There is something about the human condition that goes beyond religion, and it is clear that there are bad actors, doing bad things, whether religious or not.
This is no different than “the Jews let the holocaust happen to them”
EDIT: This was unnecessarily inflammatory from me, which a thread like this doesnt need, but I left the offending message in place so @Hope.in.your.heart 's response to me makes sense to people trying to follow along.
Religion is shit.
Politics is shit.
Both have their own fanatics. Quite often , there are a set of common people who are both religious and extreme in their political views. I count extremists amongst atheists as complete idiots too.
Keep your belief or lack of belief to yourself without showing people what a complete bellend you are.
The world can do better than having sanctimonious assholes behaving as if their word is what goes.
Society will only go one way when humans stop questioning and believe everything that either a political or a religious leader says.
At the end of the day , it’s convenient for humans to go as per what’s the most convenient thing for them to do. It’s what’s expected of them and humans for the most part are almost always consistent.
Oh and yeah , humans are fuckwits
UN report: Israel has destroyed over 3,000 buildings in 1km ‘buffer zone’ it is creating inside Gaza border
A UN report has said that Israel has destroyed over 3,000 buildings within a 1km “buffer zone” that it is creating inside the Gaza Strip along the territory’s border with Israel.
The report says:
Statistical analysis shows the rapid increase in damaged and destroyed buildings within the zone, from 15% to 90% between October 2023 and February 2024. Satellite-derived analysis undertaken on 29 February 2024 on 4042 buildings within the zone, shows 3033 destroyed, 593 damaged (severe or moderately) and 416 with no visible damage.
Haaretz quotes Harel Dan, who it says is an expert in GIS and remote sensing, who said the UN report has “some noise in it” but looks close to the truth. The Israeli newspaper has previously reported that the zone might in places extend to 1,200m. Volker Türk, the UN high commissioner for human rights, has previously singled out the project as potentially a war crime.
US/West must not allow this to happen. It’s an ideal incitement for Hamas.
It’s already been allowed to happen.
Err… no, not at all. The Jews were a minority persecuted and killed by a fanatical regime. But they were a minority in Germany, and thus they can’t be held responsible for what happened. I’m not sure what your point is to be honest.
People don’t vote for their loss of freedom/rights. They tend to vote to enhance their rights which generally results in a loss of freedom/rights for social, religious, or ethnic group. The rise of Buddhist, Hindu, or Jewish radicalism in Myanmar, India, and Israel respectively.
Once death becomes a viable consequence of opposition to a growing oppressive force you find that alliances dissolve incredibly quickly. Where situations have occurred where a rising oppressive force was not stopped it is because the ties that bind opponents together are less strong than the fear of personal retribution. I know the popular phrase about the role of indifference in “allowing” these changes to our society, but it generally rarely is. It is either as Iffi points out, support from significant parts of the population because they see it as preserving their own freedoms (we have to punish “them” to protect our way of life), or my tie to what you and I share is less strong than my need to keep my head down for fear of retribution.
The word erasure is now one of these annoying social media buzz words, but it is a valid in this case of erasure of the consequences of those who tried to stand up in opposition to these rising forces
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I understand your point now. I think that passivity plays a role , but yeah, fanatics like to pitch communities against each other, and always look for scapegoats.
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I am maybe unusual in that I have friends whose first degree family members lived through the Iranian Islamic revolution (I think I told the story of an ex of mine whose father was part of the security forces for the Shah, and amusingly, at least according to him, was friends with the Iron Sheik from that time), saw family members executed in Mao’s struggle sessions, friends raised across various E European regimes under the iron curtain, and loads of Cubans with stories of families wrecked by Castro.
It only takes 5 mins of them opening up about their experiences to find the use of the word “allow” to describe what happened to them and their families problematic.
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Not sure I’ve seen any reports suggesting so, although certainly without any information it looks like a strong possibility.
