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The Voice is one of the defining issues of our age. What was — I hope my tense proves right later tonight — contemplated was the insertion of racial discrimination into Australia’s founding document. You can argue that it’s not race but heritage. Okay, have your way. It’s discrimination between one citizen and another based on the identify of their forbears. It’s giving rights to one denied to another. It’s equally obnoxious. Here, little Johnny, you can have a cake because your great grandfather was the descendant of a native Australian. Sorry Bill, no cake for you.
Our very being, brought up in a Judaeo-Christian civilisation, cries out against such cruel and unkind discrimination. So why were so many taken in by the Voice? Quite simply, because of the widespread undermining of our civilisation; its debilitation from within. Thankfully we are, in Australia, still far away from losing it. And even more thankfully, we are a chasm away from morphing, in its stead, into some violent and oppressive civilisation. That’s effectively what happened in Nazi Germany. It can be characterised by mobs chanting “Gas the Jews”.
Oh dear! That’s too close to home, isn’t it? That chant at the Opera House has now gone around the world. Of course, it goes without saying, it does not represent Australian values. But it does represent the values of some Muslims, and by extensions their children, who we have invited into our midst to share our citizenship. How has that happened? How is that still happening as we speak?
Here’s a theory. We have outsourced immigration policies to a reinvented breed of leftist-cum-Marxist apparatchiks, who have hijacked the public service and every institution which isn’t avowedly conservative. You don’t think that’s right? It’s going too far? Well then, what is the explanation for the bringing in of millions of people into the West who don’t share our peerless values?
I left my club’s Gym in Phillip Street in Sydney on Monday evening to find what I thought was the tail end of anti-Israeli demonstrators passing by. I’m not brave. So it was without thinking that I cupped my hands and, in response to “Down with Israel,” shouted “Up with Israel.” Not particularly inventive. A nearby policemen warned me of the dangers by pointing to the even larger crowd behind. I stood on the side wondering whether to boo. Thought well, I’m too weak to protect myself and would rely on the police to protect me, and if they were hurt it would be my fault. You shouldn’t stand your ground unless you can do so without endangering others, I think.
What I realised was the gulf between me and those marching. An unbridgeable gulf seeded in a religion which is an unremitting blight on humanity, as Churchill pointed out well over a century ago. And if you need a more authoritative source: “Beware of false prophets [quintessentially Muhammad]…Ye shall know them by their fruits.” (Matthew 7:15-16.) And what fruits they were in Israel! Unspeakable acts of defilement and slaughter perpetrated by savages on men, women, children, even babies for pity sake. And some Australians cheered this on? Thought it was a cause for celebration?
Daniel Greenfield sums it up for me.
Civilizations have become too sophisticated and decadent to understand … When faced with barbarism, they go down a dialectic rabbit hole … Did they hurt their feelings, overthrow their governments or draw mean cartoons? Did capitalism leave them adrift in the world economy? How did we fail to integrate the newest generation of immigrants with all the welfare checks? These sophomoric sessions are pointless.
A hyena doesn’t eat your chickens because you failed to integrate it. That’s just what hyenas do.
It’s my own theory, but I think this time Hamas underestimated how “successful” they would be at their favoured pastime, killing Jews. A big mistake. Hopefully Israel will now rid the world of them once and for all. Unfortunately, Islam will live on, throwing up barbarians everywhere it occupies the planet.
I’ve drifted with intent from the Voice to Islamic barbarism. No, they are not nearly the same. But as Andrew Bolt quite rightly put it the other evening, they are both steeped in tribalism. In an us versus them mentality. Unfortunately, tribalism still afflicts much of the world. It’s Un-Australian.
Alas, Peter, I think our species is still, fundamentally, tribal. We gravitate, in where we live and socialise, to those who share common interests and values. For this reason, I don’t believe that it is tribalism per se, which is at fault for the sentiments and extremism we are seeing in response to the horrendous events of the past week. Rather, it is the existential beliefs and the expression of those beliefs that define our respect for the life-force that we have been granted.
In the past week we have been psychologically shocked by the defilement of human life. Those who are not fully informed of the events shrug and say “this is what war is”. But the modern world has attempted to establish minimum conventions of warfare, & these have been horribly violated. A malignancy that encourages a rage against even infants has reminded us of the evil that cannot be eliminated.
Not up to your usual standard Peter. Demonising 1/4 of the human beings on earth is not a very productive argument I would have thought. As regards tribalism, like Christianity it is blind to race, unlike the voice to parliament. Unfortunately many of its adherants have drunk from the springs and wells of hatred, something we should all do our best to avoid.
Occidental, I suppose if I hadn’t read Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Mark Steyn, Douglas Murray, Irshad Manji, Robert Spencer, Oriana Fallaci, Mark Durie, Michel Houellebecq. and others; if I hadn’t often dipped into the Koran and the Hadith to check on what was being said and written; if I hadn’t heard of Charlie Hebdo, Manchester Arena, 7/7 and 9/11, and so on, ad infinitum; if I was ignorant of the growth of no-go areas in western Europe; if I hadn’t seen the despicable Sheikh Ibrahim Dadoun celebrating the Hamas slaughter of men women, children, and babies (and babies!); if I was blissfully unaware of chants of “gas the Jews” at the Sydney Opera House; I might be a useful idiot. As it is, I recognise Islam as an evil creed which warps the minds of its followers and which therefore throws up a continual stream of barbarism. That Muslims make up around 25% of the world’s population illustrates the size of the threat faced by those defending western civilisation; and by those enjoying its benefits, without realising how tenuous its hold is becoming. Let me be even clearer. Adult Germans living from 1935 to 1945 were not all, or mostly, monsters. But they were followers of a monstrous creed. That makes them complicit and enablers. And let there be little doubt, mostly enthusiastic overlords, if they’d won.
“.. and babies (and babies!)”.
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While I feel at least as strongly, I for once have some agreement with Elijah Schaffer when he Tweeted (or is it X-ed?):
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Hoes with 3 abortions crying about beheaded babies “Who would do that to a baby” Like…BITCH…that’s you!
Ah Peter I had no idea you were such a scholar of the Islamic faith. I will be honest I read little these days, having some time ago decided I was a little too derivative in my thinking., so I cant quote any tomes I have read. However the few followers of Islam I have known have all seemed agreeable people to me.
But a question that has nagged at me for many years now, is why Muslims, Christians, and Jews especially lived together in various parts of the world prior to the Second World War in relatively peaceful coexistence. If as you (and many others) say, that Islam is inherently evil, one would have thought it impossible for its adherents to live peacefully with other faiths- ever. Jews for centuries if not millenia were persecuted and treated like animals in Christian Europe, culminating in the nadir of human affairs know as the holocaust or Shoah. But for most of this time the Jews peacefully coexisted as a minority in many parts of the Islamic middle east. Again, if as you say Islam is an inherently barbaric and evil religion, how could that happen. Like the scientific method from time to time you have to hold your views up to the light of known data, and test them for inconsistencies.
The other thing that should be considered is that humans are generally the same, and religions or beliefs that are not consistent with normal human drives tend not to grow. If Islam is as terrible as you say, I doubt it would it would have got out of the Arabian Peninsula, whereas at the moment it is probably the most popular religion on earth. While its beliefs dont appeal to me, a lot of people seem to find it an agreeable faith. Again this is not consistent with a faith as barbarous as you would paint it.
Islam like any religion has moderates and fanatics. Any reading of all of them show deep wisdom at source and horrific violence and misogyny. That also applies to Buddhism as I discovered to my surprise when I explored that religion.
I do not believe we should retrofit modern values to the past and all religions are sourced in an ancient past which to our modern eyes is unenlightened, barbaric, misogynistic and often childishly brutal. If we judged all religions by the worst of their teachings not one would be acceptable in our modern age.
Islam is 600 years younger than Christianity and it shows. It is also more common in less developed countries where people still struggle to survive and be heard. As a woman it is not a religion I would choose but Hinduism is worse and fundamentalist Judaism and Christianity not much better.
“Like any other religion” … really?
Name the last Catholic to advance the cause of Christ by blowing himself up on a crowded bus.
Íslam is 600 years younger than Christianity. What were Christians doing in 1400? Most Muslim countries are Third World and many have been made dysfunctional by the West propping up their tyrants or attacking them.
I would also say Roger, that my view of the tragedy of Israel and Palestine is that having worked with and for Israelis and met some great people, I am also very aware of the bigotry and fear which permeates Israeli culture.
I have had Israeli friends who lived in fear for their lives for saying no more than what I have said. In fact I have not heard from one of them for a long time.
The brutality of the occupation and continued colonisation of Palestine debases Israelis and their society. As such things do. The Palestinians have time, right and numbers on their side and have become resilient. Israeli culture has been poisoned by the actions of the State. Groups like Breaking the Silence where disaffected ex-IDF tell their stories reflect that cultural conflict which is destroying Israel. Israelis are not united and as has been said, the real threat to the State is from within between the orthodox Jews and the secular/atheist.
I have Jewish family and Jewish friends and I know that the Israeli State does not reflect the best of Judaism. That is a tragedy for all Jews.
Can I ask if you apply your principles equally? Do you condemn all Jews for the actions of Jewish radicals and fanatics? How about Christians, Hindus, Buddhists or is it just Muslims?
I’m a little disappointed Peter. You’ve taken my mantle of writing the longest continuous sentence in Quadrant comment.
Having been so sensible on many issues in the past I find this article confusing from Peter.
How can anyone ignore that Israel occupies all of Palestine and brutally so, denying the native people human rights and freedom for 75 years as it continues to take their land?
How can anyone ignore the fact that for 17 years Gaza has been a prison, treated appallingly by Israel and where Israel tests its weapons on the civilian population in the most evil form of collective punishment any colonial regime has ever practised? Mowing the Lawn the IDF calls it. Killing men, women and mostly children is just mowing the lawn. I remain gobsmacked that anyone defends that.
Israel is the occupier with all of the power and total responsibility for the Palestinians whom it crushes under military colonial rule. Israel has just told the settlers in Occupied Palestine they can kill Palestinians on sight. As they are doing. I mean, really? If that is not collective punishment I don’t know what is. The settlers have been carrying out increasingly violent pogroms for weeks now. This just gives them carte blanche for Biblical levels of revenge.
Which brings me to ask, for those who support Israel right or wrong, what is an acceptable level of slaughter to assuage Israeli humiliation? Generally the Israelis have worked on 10-1 but this attack by the Palestinian Resistance was so profound, should 100 to 1 be the target? Or more?
I think current figures are around 1800 dead with 583 of them children. Given that 47% of the population in Gaza are children, what is an unacceptable level of revenge slaughter for Israel? Is there one? The Israelis told the prisoners to flee to the Egyptian border, which many did, mostly women and children and Israel bombed them. I mean seriously. Who on earth can support such bloodshed in the name of revenge by an occupier who has brutalised the native people for decades?
But clearly some do, so, what is the figure which morphs into unacceptable revenge for Israel?
Sometimes silence followed with a question mark is sufficient to show strong emotion. ?.
@Paul.Harrison,
Sorry but I do not get your point. Obscure.
That’s the issue, right there. If you do not think it through and thus see the point, then no amount of persuasion will suffice. I will not lead you to the end point, you need to do it yourself.
You said: Sometimes silence followed with a question mark is sufficient to show strong emotion. ?.
That is meaningless and obscure. This medium is cryptic enough by its very nature. If you want to make a point then clarify the point. Otherwise, silence would have been a better choice for you with no question mark needed.
Rossross, there is so much disinformation in your comment. We should all try to understand that Israel accepted its heavily constrained borders set by the UN in 1947. Arabs didn’t and so has followed a succession of wars on Israel – each of which Israel has won. The occupied territories? Gaza isn’t occupied. The West Bank was won from Jordan in the Six-Day (1967) War – a war which Israel pleaded with Jordan not to enter. One thing is for sure. Jordan doesn’t want that territory back, together with its Palestinian malcontents and terrorists. Another thing to consider is that the “occupied” West Bank comprises the traditional Jewish lands of Judea and Samaria. But Dennis Prager sums it up well. If the Israelis disarmed they would be slaughtered. If the Palestinians disarmed there would be peace; and, I would add, prosperity and freedom.
You said: We should all try to understand that Israel accepted its heavily constrained borders set by the UN in 1947.
There was no Israel. Zionists accepted those borders of course they did having worked for it since the 1890’s. Palestinians did not accept having a slab of their country given to European colonisers in the name of a religion which disenfranchised most of them. Why would they?
You said: and so has followed a succession of wars on Israel – each of which Israel has won.
And Israeli historians have said in recent times Israel set up those wars because it wanted to take more of Palestine. However, Right of Conquest was tossed out after WWII so all land taken in war is Occupied.
You said: Gaza isn’t occupied.
Gaza is in Occupied Palestine, of course it is Occupied. And what do you call it when a military force surrounds you with an electric fence and controls how much food and medicine you get and prevents you leaving? I would call that occupation.
You said: The West Bank was won from Jordan in the Six-Day (1967) War –
West Bank is a euphemism for Occupied Palestine. Israel was instrumental in creating the Six-Day war. In fact Israel started that war.
You said: . Another thing to consider is that the “occupied” West Bank comprises the traditional Jewish lands of Judea and Samaria.
Judea and Samaria, ancient kingdoms, long gone have as much relevance as the kingdom of Mercia and others in the UK. Long gone.
If we applied your criteria then the Christians would demand Istanbul, a Christian city for thousand years and more. They would also claim Bombay in India because they built it and Madras. Fortunately religions do not get rights to land where their followers camped for a bit and built things.
You said: But Dennis Prager sums it up well. If the Israelis disarmed they would be slaughtered. If the Palestinians disarmed there would be peace; and, I would add, prosperity and freedom.
Yes, I read Prager but he was not the first to say it and it remains Israeli propaganda. The fact is Israel is massively armed and the Palestinians are not. Israel is a threat to Palestine but Palestine is not a threat to Israel except in terms of the fact its cause is just and demograpics.
If the result of peace is prosperity and freedom then why are non-Jewish Israelis second-class citizens with inferior rights to Jews? Surely their lives should be Utopian and not miserable with increasing calls from Israeli politicians to drive them out.
Gaza is a prison in Occupied Palestine and I suggest you read Israeli and international human rights groups and spend more time reading Haaretz to understand the venality and abuse of the prisoners by Israel. Also take time to read Breaking the Silence reports where traumatised ex IDF detail the horrors they are told to commit against Palestinians.
A question for you, if this is solely about disarming the Palestinians why does Israel test its weapons on the prisoners in Gaza which the IDF calls mowing the lawn. Can you in all conscience accept that killing imprisoned men, women and children is akin to mowing the lawn?
Why does the Israeli Government talk about keeping those in Gaza on life support if Gaza is not occupied by Israel? Why are Palestinians caged at checkpoints if Israel wants peace? Do you really think that wins hearts and minds?
You are repeating propaganda.
When you talk about tribalism surely the entire concept of Israel is tribal? Many religions are tribal in nature and Judaism is one of them.
And surely it is tribalistic to demand revenge for the deaths of Jews at far greater rates?
As a defender of Israel right or wrong, what is your top figure for killing Palestinians in Gaza as acceptable? How about the Palestinians elsewhere? Israel has told settlers they can kill Palestinians on sight and that has begun. Do you support that? Do you blame all Muslims for the violence of some? I don’t blame all Jews for the violence of some.
Israel usually works on 10 for the life of one Jew but this attack was so profound, do you think it should be 100? Already 1800 Palestinians in the Gaza prison are dead with nearly 600 of them children. What is your cutoff point for justified revenge? Is it 100,000, 500,000, a million dead men, women and children, the latter making up 47% of the Gaza population?
When is enough enough in this barbaric biblical ritual of revenge which Israel has practised since it was invented?
Be brave, give me a figure of how many lives are required to avenge the deaths of Jews at the hands of the Palestinian Resistance.
@Peter,
Are you truly unaware that non-Jewish Israelis are second-class citizens? Israeli human rights groups like B’Tselem and Peace Now detail all of the injustice and should be read alongside Prager.
Non-Jewish Israelis have different and inferior education and medical services; they cannot bring family, parents, children, spouses to live with them in Israel; they cannot work outside Israel and return and if they do leave their citizenship is revoked; they must apply for special permission, usually denied, to build onto their homes and they are not free to live anywhere in Israel that they choose.
You talk as if there were no injustice. Have you seen the cages at Israeli checkpoints where Palestinians are crammed for processing, men, women, children, old, young, sick, women in labour. Do you really believe people can be treated like that and not become angry and resentful?
To leave you with a quote from B’Tselem, an Israeli human rights organisation:
More than 14 million people, roughly half of them Jews and the other half Palestinians, live between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea under a single rule. The common perception in public, political, legal and media discourse is that two separate regimes operate side by side in this area, separated by the Green Line. One regime, inside the borders of the sovereign State of Israel, is a permanent democracy with a population of about nine million, all Israeli citizens. The other regime, in the territories Israel took over in 1967, whose final status is supposed to be determined in future negotiations, is a temporary military occupation imposed on some five million Palestinian subjects.
Over time, the distinction between the two regimes has grown divorced from reality. This state of affairs has existed for more than 50 years – twice as long as the State of Israel existed without it. Hundreds of thousands of Jewish settlers now reside in permanent settlements east of the Green Line, living as though they were west of it. East Jerusalem has been officially annexed to Israel’s sovereign territory, and the West Bank has been annexed in practice. Most importantly, the distinction obfuscates the fact that the entire area between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River is organized under a single principle: advancing and cementing the supremacy of one group – Jews – over another – Palestinians. All this leads to the conclusion that these are not two parallel regimes that simply happen to uphold the same principle. There is one regime governing the entire area and the people living in it, based on a single organizing principle.
When B’Tselem was founded in 1989, we limited our mandate to the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) and the Gaza Strip, and refrained from addressing human rights inside the State of Israel established in 1948 or from taking a comprehensive approach to the entire area between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. Yet the situation has changed. The regime’s organizing principle has gained visibility in recent years, as evidenced by the Basic Law: Israel – the Nation State of the Jewish People passed in 2018, or open talk of formally annexing parts of the West Bank in 2020. Taken together with the facts described above, this means that what happens in the Occupied Territories can no longer be treated as separate from the reality in the entire area under Israel’s control. The terms we have used in recent years to describe the situation – such as “prolonged occupation” or a “one-state reality” – are no longer adequate. To continue effectively fighting human rights violations, it is essential to examine and define the regime that governs the entire area.
Is there some way you can condense your commentary? I really don’t have time to read it all. Neither I suspect do many others. There’s no need to tell Peter and his other readers everything you know about the subject. Probably he intended to be provocative, but even so….
Speaking of ‘everything you know’ reminds me of a famous quip attributed to R. G. Menzies at a political meeting:
Woman in audience, heckling: “Tell us everything you know Bob, it won’t take very long!”
RGM: “Madam, I’ll tell you everything we both know – it won’t take any longer”.
(I realise this is irrelevant, but at least it’s short).
“Is there some way you can condense your commentary? I really don’t have time to read it all.”
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A simple solution is to not read any.
@Stephen Due,
Don’t read it. Easily fixed. The issue is complex and correcting misinformation is important.
@Stephen Due,
I am sorry about the length but I was responding to Peter’s claims point by point. There is no obligation to read any of it. We all have that choice. Some might find it informative and others not.
“Rossross, there is so much disinformation in your comment.”
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And not much else. From past experience, discussion is pointless. It’s grabbed as an opportunity to spew a series of related weird invented theories. Watch it happening.
>” … spew a series of related weird invented theories. Watch it happening.”<
Yes. rosross's comments here on this topic are just an incoherent splatterfest. Fortunately my scroll wheel works just fine.
This, succinctly, for him:
This time, they will not go quietly.
My incoherent splatterfest as you put it, represents the words of Israeli and international human rights groups; Israeli historians and American Jewish groups like Mondoweiss, If Americans Knew and many others. If you think facts are a splatterfest it says a lot.
As long as Israel brutally occupies Palestine you have no case.
So, name one weird theory please Katz! You spend a lot of time spraying insults but very little time refuting anything. Just one weird theory would do.
Yawn, such a tired trope. 75 years to work out a peaceful political outcome. But why do that when killing Jews is the real goal?
Well said Peter. I feel an existential anger in lockstep with Israel. Hamas lashed out, savagely, and now they will reap the whirlwind. They are vile creatures dealing death to the innocent, and Israel will have her vengeance. Let us hope that they break these savages so that they start to run to the furthermost corners of the dank, stinking rat holes which they call home. They never have, do not now and never will earn the title of human from me. Even rabid dogs do not behave like they have. Let us hope that Netanyahu does not bend to international criticism, or undue influence, to hold his forces back. Let us hope that they turn Gaza into a glowing parking lot, and let us also hope that they carry the battle to the ultimate dogs of war, Iran.
I am astonished at those calling for Israel to nuke the Palestinians in Gaza and to go to war with Iran. Seriously? Israel is the Occupier and has total responsibility for the Palestinians under international law. What it does is bad enough but to drop nuclear bombs on the prisoners in Gaza, nearly half of them children, is just too evil. Apart from which the fallout would wipe out a lot of Israelis as well.
Iran is not Iraq. Not only could it eradicate Israel if attacked, but it could do terrible damage to the US. I fail to understand this war mentality. Things are bad enough with the US proxy war in Ukraine against Russia and looking for a war with China. As if war was ever an answer.
Israel might kill 2 million in Gaza but they cannot kill the other 4 million in Occupied Palestine without removing the Jewish settlers and that won’t happen. Even if Israel did eradicate 6 million non-Jews in Palestine it would still have nearly 2 million Palestinians who became Israeli citizens and while some politicians are calling for them to be eradicated, it is hard to see how Israel could kill them all without carnage amongst other Israelis.
And then there are the 8 million in the Palestinian Diaspora. Are they to be assassinated one by one to give Israel the impossible ‘security’ it demands? Where are the voices of sanity calling for an end to the occupation and justice for the Palestinian instead of these juvenile cries for war and even nuclear war?
Horrifyingly many of the most rabid warmongers are Christians.
Rings true for me Peter. Good piece.
The rational Western mind of individualism and materialism projects this mindset onto those who feel tribally and think mythologically. The material conditions of life in Gaza are appalling but that is not necessarily the motivation for the followers of Islam to act as they have done. This is known from their past history of behaving as they have done during this ‘Operation al Asqa Flood’ towards infidels in Muslim majority and controlled countries eg Turkey. Religious reasons are behind it in those cases and in this one, with local conditions playing a role for sure but not the definitive one. As per the name of the operation and statements by representatives of Hamas, a religiously focussed organisation, the threat to the al Asqa mosque posed by the expressed intent to rebuild the Temple by conservative Jews, which would mean the destruction of the mosque, is the emotion driving the operation. The material conditions of life do factor into the calculus in that the Palestinians survive those conditions with their faith in their ultimate triumph through Allah. Take that faith away by building the Temple on top of a destroyed mosque and that psychological survival mechanism is gone. Hamas knows this intimately as Islam has practiced this tactic over the centuries since the Arab conquests and builds mega mosques in Western cities for the same reason.
Every church, mosque, synagogue and temple in the world is pretty much built on the bones of an earlier religious edifice. There are sacred places and all religions have claimed the right to build on them. Well, in less civilized times that is.
Let us remember the Muslims did not destroy Haga Sophia but turned it into a museum.
How does it work though to condemn Islam for tearing down other religious edifices when that is what Jews want to do with Al Asga in the name of a temple said to have been built by Jewish tribes thousands of years ago?
A particular instance of how applying Western individualist thinking to Muslim tribal thinking is evidenced in Gaza City where we are frequently told half the population are children and adolescents. Gaza has been an overpopulated crowded hell hole since before this demographic was born and in these circumstances of too many people chasing precious little resources the Western calculus has seen people decide not to have children lest they be born into the dire circumstances or just deciding to limit the number of children one has by birth control. Senator David Pocock, on a decent salary in Parliament has decided to not add any more Pococks to the Australian population because he expects dire circumstances to descend on the country.
So twenty years ago the adult population in Gaza would have followed that enlightened reasoning, right?
Well no because their response was to keep breeding to ensure the survival of their lineages and tribe, contrary to the reasoning in Western populations.
“Senator David Pocock, on a decent salary in Parliament has decided to not add any more Pococks to the Australian population because he expects dire circumstances to descend on the country.“
Thats the best news I have heard all day.
It is an interesting but not surprising biological reality that fertility increases in humans who are traumatised. No doubt Mother Nature thought it was a good idea to ensure survival.
That in itself is fascinating given modern theories that mothers traumatised in pregnancy, as has been the case in Gaza in particular for 17 years and Palestine in general for 75 years, will have their babies affected in utero.
Quote: “Elevated levels of cortisol and foetal distress can impact the architecture of the child’s developing brain, possibly changing its size, shape, structure and organisation. This can result in reduced and impaired functioning.”
I am not sure I subscribe to the theory given the reality of human resilience across recorded history where war and trauma have been more common than peace and serenity.
One also presumes that contraceptives are not easily found in Gaza or affordable. And as is found in Christianity and Judaism, the orthodox and traditional believers tend to have large families. And one presumes sex is a distraction when one lives in a state of fear. Indeed, in psychological terms, there must be an impetus to create life when one lives every day in the face of death, as they do in the Gaza prison.
Again, Mother Nature is probably at work and another reason why rape is so common in war and always has been.
Jews have a God-given right, no, an obligation to destroy any and everyone that gets in their way of establishing their Promised Land, which extends from the Nile to the Euphrates. It is all in the Torah!
Rossross and Occidental evidently have pro-Islamic / Palestinian axes to grind. E.g,, Israel started the Six-Day War. Yes, and technically, Britain started the war with Germany. What a joke. Nasser had closed the Strait of Tiran and the Egyptian, Syrian and Jordanian armies were amassed ready to strike.
Best, I suggest, if the two of you submitted papers. I’m sure the editor will consider them if they hang together.
Peter I encourage you to read what I wrote in my comments. I did not mention Palestine, Israel or current events. The argument I have is with your attack on Islam, or more accurately your bigoted attack on the people who follow that faith. It is not helpful, and not reflective of reality. You should get out a bit more and meet a few Musilms. You will find that mostly they are just like anyone else. The Germans who you so rightly condemn, were mainly christians, does that make you question Christianity?
I tend to respect an argument that as you say “hangs together”, but making an emotional attack on probably the largest faith on earth, requires a wee bit of reasoning to sustain it. To go from an attrocity by a group of Palestinians and a protest in Sydney by some hotheads (which likely included many young christians), to the conclusion that “…Islam will live on, throwing up barbarians everywhere it occupies the planet”, is intellectually childish.
“You will find that mostly they are just like anyone else”.
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I lived, worked and played with Muslims for many years. I met thousands, hundreds intimately. Who are these “anyone else” they are mostly “just like”? No cohort that I know or know of.
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My latest wife is Muslim, and she’s not remotely like any non-Muslim woman I’ve known.
Well now I will be honest, I have not known any Muslim “intimately”, and hence will defer to your experience in that regard, but on a casual conversational basis, I am comparing them to the range of Australians you meet everyday. But if you have any insights into the differences between Muslims and the rest of humanity, or perhaps your preferred comparative cohort I am all ears.
I used “intimately” in the meaning “in a way that involves detailed knowledge”. I suggest you get a more detailed knowledge that I have by doing as Peter Smith wrote in his comment to which you replied “Ah Peter I had no idea you were such a scholar of the Islamic faith”, viz:
” read Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Mark Steyn, Douglas Murray, Irshad Manji, Robert Spencer, Oriana Fallaci, Mark Durie, Michel Houellebecq”.
.
I pass on one observation from a close friend with with more experience than I,
“Muslim men and women are like different species”.
Hang on, you have met “thousands” of Muslims, known hundreds “intimately” and your wife is a Muslim, and according to you they are not like any other cohort of people. I ask not unreasonably (bearing in mind your obvious experience of the people), for insights into their differences, and you quote a mate who has “more experience” than you – very strange.
I have known African, Indian, British, European and American Muslims well. And yes, they are like anyone else and like Jews from Africa, India, UK, Europe and the US, they are different. Ditto for Christians.
I also find condemning every Muslim for the violence of a few as unreasonable. As it would be to condemn every Jew for the violence of their radicals. Ditto for Christians, Hindus, Buddhists etc.
A quick scratch seems to often reveal that those who defend Israel’s atrocities toward the Palestinians actually just hate Muslims. The fact Palestinian Christians suffer in the same way is ignored.
We humans are nothing if not contradictory.
“Bigotry”, Ros? I, too, would have said that once, but a beautiful blue-sky morning in 2001 and the spectacle of office workers trudging north on Manhattan’s avenues from Wall Street, many sobbing and covered in white dust, prompted a re-appraisal, as did the footage of the Religion of Peace’s adherents throughout the Muslim world handing out sweets and filling the air with ululations of sheer delight.
It’s not bigotry to notice the truth: that Islam is a political movement masquerading as a religion.
Yes, there are lovely Muslims — the chap with whom I once co-owned a small boat, for example — but here’s the problem: An assimilated Muslim family are perfect neighbours and solid citizens. Then some weird-beard imam gets at the kids, fills their heads with arrogant nonsense about Allah ordaining the creed’s destiny to rule the world and …. kaboom.
This scenario has been played out repeatedly in Britain and, indeed, in Australia, where we have seen idiot teens go at the police with knives and lethal intent, as happened in the Melbourne suburb of Endeavour Hills some years ago.
Religion is all very well and good, but a creed that pronounces itself superior to all others and backs that up with violence and “divinely inspired” contempt for civilised behaviour is neither.
Bigotry, Roger, in terms of condemning all members of a religion for the acts of a few.
My son was living in New York on 9/11 and trying to find out where he was took some time. No-one disputes it was a terrible event although I do remain curious as to why Building Seven, hit by nothing, also imploded perfectly into its footprint.
I do not believe we know the full story of 9/11 but there is a group set up long ago by varied American professionals who question the official story. And then we have supposedly Saudis responsible, but the Americans flew out noted Saudis very quickly and then attacked Iraq and not Saudi Arabia. Curioser and curioser.
As to Islam as a political movement I think we have to agree that most religions also act as political movements, sometimes for good and sometimes for ill.
My experience of Muslims is they are no different to other religions. My reading about fanatical Muslims says to me they are no different than any other religious fanatics. I just have a problem with the attitude that Muslims, because of their radicals, are to be condemned. All religions have their fanatics, but only Islam is treated this way.
And can any of us honestly say that what is said and written about Islamic radicals is the absolute truth? Would we see it differently if we were given balance? I guess I strive to create a level of balance.
I agree that radicals can mess with the heads of kids. But I would say that applies to all religions. All fanatical religious systems use brainwashing. And, I saw first hand living in India how fanatical many Hindus are and their constant attacks on Christians and Muslims. But when does that make the front pages?
Most fundamentalist religions pronounce they are superior to all others and resort to violence. That is not particular to Islam. We have fundamentalist Christians shooting doctors in abortion clinics and fundamentalist Jews setting fire to the homes of Palestinians. Who would condemn all Christians or all Jews for such acts? I would not.
As to civilized behaviour, there is nothing civilized about Israel’s behaviour at present. It is pure Biblical barbarism. Yes you can say the Palestinian Resistance has responded with barbarism but it has responded to the barbarism of occupation and colonisation. Two wrongs do not make a right and as the occupying entity, as Israeli human rights groups state, all responsibility for the welfare of the Palestinians rests with Israel.
This issue is confused by high levels of emotion at times when a clear head and consideration of factual realities is required. I condemn Islamic violence but no more than I condemn Jewish violence. I do not believe Jewish radicals represent all Jews and I do not believe Muslim radicals represent all Muslims.
That is really the only difference between my position and that of the Israel defenders. I apply the same principles to everyone.
Read the 9/11 Commission Report, which explains Building Seven’s demolition. It is also, for a government report, extraordinarily coherent and well written
As to Islam, as I said, the explodey ones have been seduced by a political cause dressed up as a religion.
At this point, by the way, I think we draw a line under this comment thread, which is producing more heat than light.
Half an hour to get in the last jabs, then it ends.
Yes, I have read the reports on Building Seven and those from Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth. I doubt any true clarity will emerge in our lifetime.
I like to think in regard to violence of any kind we can find compassion for all involved and strive to apply context to all actions.
Thanks for your responses and full marks to Quadrant for allowing free and open discussion on a contentious topic. Many would not.
Actually I did you a disservice about being repetitive, if I could redact that comment I would. Reading all your posts on this thread has been interesting.
“And then it ends”
Well your the boss, but the thread is a contest of ideas, not that there will be any winner. I rather think that this thread is quite civil, albeit a little repetitive, (looking at you rosross). Your comment for instance has prompted me to search out the 9/11 commisission report. I must say before you close the thread that I am very grateful that this forum and exchange of ideas without heavy moderation exists. I am often on the less numerous side of most arguments but often enjoy reading ideas that test my thinking.
@Occidental,
Repetitive because I respond to claims and charges and they are repetitive. Same-old, same-old Muslims are evil and Israel is innocent.
If only life were so simple.
Building 7 succumbed to the firestorm next to it.
https://www.history.co.uk/articles/building-7-conspiracy-theories-debunked.
The next day I went to a conference on Mast Cell Tumours in the Sydney Trade Centre.
It was a carefully made decision.
Potentially it would also be destroyed but I decided I was not going to let whoever was doing this
change my decision to go.
That does not make me a hero, I checked all the exits.
The overseas speaker thanked all Australians for solidarity with the US in its time of attack.
I was opposed to going into the Middle East after WMD.There weren’t any.
It financially broke the US.
Whenever peace breaks out in the Middle East, especially Palestine, a new Jihad starts.
Unfortunately the early reports, now stopped, that the Israelis did not know the attack was coming were probably intentional misinformation. The fog of war.
Hence their ability to put troops on the ground in 8 hours.
Hence their now justification for their hopefully measured response.
If they had gone early and revealed the Hamas plans, the world press would have disbelieved them.
Even now the ABC Middle Eastern Reporter, who only needed a pc and a internet connection, was in denial of Hamas tactics of terror.
Another Israeli tactic could have been to announce the Hamas plans days before the attack, wait for the denials and then let the world watch the attack. This as happened in Ukraine when the Russians moved troops to the border and said they were ‘exercising.’.
To do so would have shown their intelligence penetration of Hamas.
There is no conspiracy here to be found.
Unfortunately this war is premeditated,with nothing accidental about it or its previous incarnations.
Occidental, You confessed to doing little reading these days. I suggest you read this, which I wrote in 2017:
https://quadrant.org.au/magazine/2017/12/reformist-pipedreams-islamic-reality-muslim-accountability/
Who knows, it may lead you to read accounts of those who are much more knowledgeable and expert than me on the dreadful legacy of Muhammadanism. As Churchill put it:
“Individual Moslems may show splendid qualities, but the influence of the religion paralyzes the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world.”
Peter, I enjoy most of your articles, I particularly like it when you tease apart statistics and show the guff that pretends to be truthful and based on the data.. Only rarely do you venture into the realms of nonsense, and usually when it concerns violence for some reason, ie Australian diggers or Islamic militancy for instance. But this present article makes a casual attack on the faith of a quarter of the worlds population. Quite obviously Islam as a religion has its problems adapting to the modern world, but nonetheless the charge that it throws up barbarians where ever it is, is one that should be based on history and and accepted facts. Your statement, based on one event, can not sustain it and relies on an assumption that the reader accepts these bigoted ideas. You used the words “hang’s together” in reference to Quadrant articles. This piece doesn’t hang together, atleast in respect to that charge. I asked you to reflect on why Jews, Orthodox Christians, and Muslims could live together in relative harmony for centuries (throughout the Maghreb and Levant especially) if Islam is such a barbarous religion. I suggest rather than relying on other peoples opinions, you apply your obvious intelligence for no other purpose than to challenge your established ideas. The truth is out there we just have to keep looking.
Is it pro-Islamic to apply the same principles of justice to Muslims as one would to Jews, Christians, Hindus etc?
Surely it is anti-Islamic or Islamophobic to deny such rights to humans just because they are Muslims.
I fail to understand why some very intelligent people as Peter clearly is, can apply such double standards. Why would a Muslim not have the same rights as anyone else? Why is Jewish military occupation and brutality acceptable and others are not? The hypocrisy of it all is breath-taking and the injustice makes a joke of Western claims to defend justice and human rights.
“Israel started the Six-Day War. Yes”
.
And coincidentally, massed Arab troops were poised on Israel’s border – wasn’t that convenient for Israel that they were positioned so close.
Even Israeli historians have admitted that Israel started the Six Day War to allow further annexation of Palestine.
Quote: “The thesis according to which the danger of genocide hung over us in June 1967, and according to which Israel was fighting for her very physical survival, was nothing but a bluff which was born and bred after the war,” declared Gen. Matituahu Peled, chief of logistical command during the war and one of 12 members of Israel’s General Staff, in March 1972.
A year earlier, Mordechai Bentov, a member of the wartime government and one of 37 people to sign Israel’s Declaration of Independence, had made a similar admission. “This whole story about the threat of extermination was totally contrived, and then elaborated upon, a posteriori, to justify the annexation of new Arab territories,” he said in April 1971.
Even Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin, former terrorist and darling of the Israeli far right, conceded in a speech in August 1982 that “in June 1967 we had a choice. The Egyptian army concentrations in the Sinai approaches did not prove that Nasser was really about to attack us. We must be honest with ourselves. We decided to attack him.”
@ Peter Smith,
My position is very simple. It is a defence of justice, human rights, rule of law, democracy and common human decency all of which betrays. I reject colonisation in a modern world, even if it might have been acceptable in centuries past. I take the same view of Palestine as I do of West Papua, Tibet and a few other places under such rule.
However, out of all of them Israel is the only one claiming to be a Western democracy and so is judged by that standard. By all means, show me one other Western democracy which treats the native people of the land it has colonised as Israel treats the Palestinians. Just one would do.
And I see you have not responded to my question as to what are the limits for you of Israel’s revenge kill-rate against the Palestinians. Is that an uncomfortable truth you feel is best ignored?
As to submitting articles presenting the other side of the colonial war against Palestine waged by Israel, I am not sure it is allowed by any major media outlet.
Correction – My position is very simple. It is a defence of justice, human rights, rule of law, democracy and common human decency all of which Israel betrays.
It would be wonderful if the comment thread had a correction and spacing capacity.
What unites the Voice and Gaza is that both are motivated at base by anti-Western and anti-white racism. Both are supported by today’s left, for whom Race War has replaced Class War as their main means of destruction.
The stink of ‘Muslimity’ wafts far and wide, making those Muslims who are relatively benign, equally at fault with the fanatics. Surely the wife knows her husband is a fanatic. Surely the son knows his father is a fanatic. Surely the brother knows his brother is a fanatic. Surely the Imam knows his sister is a fanatic. Surely the Father knows his son is a fanatic, and so etcetera, etcetera, and on ad infinitum, forever and a day, in lock step with each other. Equally cursed and damned as the fanatics are the people who stand idly by and say, “Isn’t it a shame, they blow up so quickly.” A civilised society has no place for rabid curs, and they must be put down. To cut off the head of an infant boy, and with this sickening victory hold oneself up as a martyr for the cause, is so far wide of humanity that he and his kind must be cast aside from our human tribe.
Surely a comment referring to the stink of Muslimity reflects more on you than Muslims? Such language reveals extreme bigotry.
As to decapitated children you need to catch up. Even the White House has walked away from that.
It is also worth reading military history to find that demonising the enemy is a required part of the process.
Re mobs chanting “Gas the Jews”…
Andrew Thornebrook writing in Epoch Times today notes::
“Hamas espouses a doctrine of genocidal antisemitism which seeks to eradicate Israel and all Jews. The Hamas Covenant, the organization’s founding document, claims that there will be a day of judgment in which all Jews will be killed. Religious leaders within Hamas have repeatedly called on Muslims worldwide to ‘totally exterminate’ the Jewish people.”
@Stephen Due,
Since most Moslems like most Jews are moderate, is it really fair to tar all with the same radical brush? Do you believe all Jews are to be condemned when one calls for Death to the Arabs, or for every Palestinian to be killed? I certainly do not.
And if we apply context, surely the compassionate thing to do is to understand that the Palestinians are an abused and subjugated people and Israelis are citizens in a State founded on fear which creates paranoia in regard to the Palestinians.
Greg Sheridan put it succinctly:
“Three Israeli prime ministers have offered a Palestinian state on all of Gaza, almost all of the West Bank, compensating territory from Israel proper and a capital in east Jerusalem. Each time such offers have been met with terrorism. No Palestinian leader could guarantee an end to terrorism and any Palestinian leader who made such a peace would be killed by Hamas-style extremists. Hamas itself has no interest in such an agreement.”
This is indisputable fact, to which certain commenters here have no answer, other than to airily call for the dismantling of Israel.
@ Sindri,
If you revisit the offers made by Israel it was not for an independent State with the same rights as an Israeli State but for bantustans still under the control of the Israeli military. Why would the Palestinians accept that?
And for good measure, Article 7 of the foundation charter of Hamas, displaying all their nauseating, primitive anti-semitism that they consider scripturally based:
“The Day of Judgment will not come about until Moslems fight Jews and kill them. Then, the Jews will hide behind rocks and trees, and the rocks and trees will cry out: ‘O Moslem, there is a Jew hiding behind me, come and kill him.”
@Sindri,
Is it really balanced to refer to ancient teachings selectively chosen to demonise an entire religion?
I do not believe it is. If you are going to take the worst of Islamic teaching then you must also take the worst of Judaic and Christian teaching. You will find in all of them such backward beliefs and quotes.
In the words of the recently deceased Rabbi Ovadia Yosef,
“Goyim were born only to serve us. Without that, they have no place in the world – only to serve the People of Israel,” he said in his weekly Saturday night sermon on the laws regarding the actions non-Jews are permitted to perform on Shabbat.
According to Yosef, the lives of non-Jews in Israel are safeguarded by divinity, to prevent losses to Jews.
“In Israel, death has no dominion over them… With gentiles, it will be like any person – they need to die, but [God] will give them longevity. Why? Imagine that one’s donkey would die, they’d lose their money.
This is his servant… That’s why he gets a long life, to work well for this Jew,” Yosef said.
I’m flying to the UK in a couple of weeks… on Qatar Airways. Qatar apparently is a supporter, or at very least tolerant, of Hamas. Yet I’m still glad I’m flying with Qatar than with stinking Qantas. What a crazy world.
Is rosross a Hamas shill?
When people resort to name-calling and ad hominem attacks they are admitting they cannot mount a coherent rebuttal.
Please make a clear case as to anything I have said which cannot be factually substantiated?
My position is very simple, a defence of justice, human rights, rule of law, democracy and common human decency. Because they are principles I apply them to everyone which is how it is meant to work. It is irrelevant if someone is Jewish or Muslim, Israeli or Palestinian, Hamas or Irgun. All are equals as humans and all deserving of the same rights.
No. It’s all her own. She would still be doing it if she was the last one of the kind on earth.
And thank goodness, there is nothing worse than an echo chamber.
Perhaps next time Katz you might actually make a case instead of just throwing insults around like cluster bombs. Target the argument and not the individual. Nice chatting with you as always.