DirtyDishSoap wrote:Dukasaur wrote:Lonous wrote:I have respected the Japanese precision in many fields, but never delved into their literary offerings before.
However this concise summary and the way it turns a phrase, may prompt some more searching on my part.
Israel, which withdrew from Gaza in 2005, has come full circle with its invasion of that territory in response to the atrocities perpetrated by the Hamas militants.
But, just as the United States invaded Afghanistan in 2001 to oust from power a terrorist militia whose rise it had facilitated via its Pakistani intelligence connections for Afghanistan's stability sake, Israel is tasting the bitter fruits of a divide-and-rule policy that helped midwife the birth of the Hamas "Frankenstein monster" that it is now seeking to subdue.
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/commentary ... ed-policy/
Yeah, yeah. Israeli intelligence, in a move that they no doubt are now very much regretting, helped fund the birth of Hamas. Saxi doesn't tire of reminding us of that in this forum, at least two or three times a year, so we can hardly forget. The CIA helped spawn the Taliban, and they very much came to regret that. King Louis XI of France spent thousands of livre on bribes to Dutchmen to spawn the nascent independence movement in the Netherlands. He thought he was hurting Austria, but in the long run it hurt France a lot more, and for the next four centuries (as recently as 1815) they had great reason to regret having helped the Dutch gain independence.
When you spawn a rabid dog, it's your duty to put him down, first and foremost. Afterwards, there will come a time to pay the piper and be sued or pilloried by your neighbours for putting this monster in their midst. But in the immediate moment, you deal with the immediate threat.
Israel has a moral obligation to its people to exterminate Hamas and end the immediate threat. After that, it will have an obligation to finally take responsibility for helping to create it in the first place. There would be some moral value in seeing punishment for the government officials who did that. But it doesn't take priority over killing the monster.
Yeah, and putting a large collection of Jewish people, surrounded by a Muslim population, that hates them, in a city that's regarded as holy to the Muslim people, probably not our smartest decision either.
Jerusalem has been the holy city of the Jews since their early days. (Since 1800 BC, if you believe the religious folk, or at least since 500 BC if you put more trust in secular scholars. Either way, a long, long time.)
Jerusalem has been a holy city of Christians since the very beginning. Most of the important events of the New Testament happen there, including the all-important crucifixion, which is pretty central to Christian identity.
Jerusalem is mentioned 669 times in the Old Testament and 146 times in the New.
By contrast, it is not mentioned even once in the Koran.
Not. Once. Not even mentioned in passing. It simply wasn't on Mohammed's radar. It's status as an "Islamic Holy City" simply has no basis; it's entirely a fable cooked up more than 300 years after Mohammed's death.
Just as Christians copycatted the traditions of the Pagans they conquered (stealing things like the Yule tradition from the Saxons) so the Muslim jihadists copycatted the traditions of the Christians they conquered. The story of Mohammed ascending into heaven at Jerusalem was a fairly dumb and uninspired attempt to steal the Christian tradition of the resurrection. There's not a sliver of historical evidence to suggest that Mohammed ever went to Jerusalem, in life or in death.
The al-Aksa mosque was built on the site of Solomon's temple, not for any scriptural or doctrinal reason, but purely as a big "Up Yours!" to the Jews, a proclamation by the Arabs that says, "Hey, it's ours now, and we're going to piss on your holy stomping ground!"
Saying that bulldozing the al-Aksa mosque is some kind of sacrilege against Islam is like saying that bulldozing Santa's Village in New Hampshire is sacrilege against Christianity.