Has him upstairs done us a favour?

A very small afluent minority...

 

Except that the UK is probably the European country that supports
Israel the least. Germany and France both support Israel far far more
than we do[1].

Phil

[1] Despite the Balfour Declaration

 

"The Crusades"..

Phil

 

To a certain extent - yes. The one thing people are missing is probably
the only thing I am qualified to talk about authoritatively:

The 'fundamentalist mindset'.

Y'see - if you have been brought up from birth to believe that:

a) Your lot are always right,
b) Acts done in the name of your religion are holy
c) People on the 'outside' are lost and (if not prepared to convert)
are effectively already dead.

and add to that an unhealthy dose of jihad and what do you get?

People who don't care for their own lives (heaven awaits and all that)
and who have been carefully taught that those who are identified as
'enemies of the faith' are nothings - and worse than that - nothings
who can be used to make political points.

It's a form of psycopathy - not seeing other people as real or human.
And as someone else has said, youth is good at doing that anyway. Add
the religious brainwashing and you have suicide bombers[1].

The other factor is nationality - Islam shares with original
Christianity the concept that nationality is irrelavent. You might
recall that we went into this whole thing when talking about voting - I
don't consider myself a citizen of the UK in any sense other than the
legal because (to me anyway) my religious affiliation trumps my legal
status as a British citizen.

They have no right to kill people at all. What they are operating under
is a perversion of Islam just as what the Catholics were operating
under during the Crusades eras was a perversion of Christianity.

I present to you the Iranian revolution (although admittedly a
Theocratic state *was* a step up from the Shah in terms of tolerance
and freedom).

'Right' is a subjective judgement - unless you believe in an absolute
truth. And that subjective judgement is based on many things
(prevailing ethics in your birth-culture etc etc).

Yup. Extremism is the same whatever the gloss put on it. The Arabs were
enthusiastic supporters of the Nazis during the WW2 because they shared
some of the same goals (destroying the Jews). And this was well before
the creation of the modern State of Israel - the only Jews in Palestine
were those who had legally bought land there and were farming it.

Nope. They have the same mindset at the radical communists of the
previous century - "Red or Dead".

In fact the closest to that in the Middle East is... Israel! And yes -
I am aware that they have by no means an open and fair society there.
But at least you won't get flogged for looking at someones wife the
wrong way..

Phil.

 

The earthquake was created by America using George Bush's[1] new secret
"Tecnonic Disruptor" which they've now perfected since falling a bit
wide of the mark with the Asian Tsunami last year. They'll be unleashing
the satellite-based mind-control rays next, you mark my words.

Time to buy shares in a tin-foil manufacturer, I think.

[1] Who is actually, despite appearing like a dopey fuckwit, an evil
genius.

 

This had me completely convinced

But now I know you're being silly

 

Lemmiwinks, The Gerbil King wrote

They already have, it is called Lifestyle TV.

I'll stick to my tried and tested stainless steel colander thank you
very much. Iron is so much better at dispersing edible currants

I still think he is a dopey fuckwit under the control of evil genii.
Under the control of somebody certainly, he has some terrible issues
when he goes off script. Terrible enough to make Regan look positively
in command of his faculties.

 

Phil Launchbury wrote

Nu Labour.

 

[George Bush]

It sounds like he might have broken out the mind-control rays early.
That's exactly what you're supposed to think.

 

Phil Launchbury wrote

Bollox.

You don't have to hear voices to be a fundamentalist.

 

You can be deaf *and* dumb?

 

I know. Because (much as I despise the term) in certain circles I would
be seen as a 'fundamentalist'. Not because I believe in what the US
calls fundamentalism but because I belong to a church that has gone
back to the fundamentals of Christian teaching (ie what was believed in
the first century).

Phil.

 

Phil Launchbury wrote

Some might say that this is merely an example of the insane running the
asylum.

Really? I doubt it somehow. Your church haven't got a clue what was
believed, only what the message was.

 

Haven't spent much time in the Middle East, have you Phil?

Dubai, Abu Dhabi, and Bahrain are all far more progressive than Israel
for the example you use.

 

Hint for the aged - in the first century they were largely the same..

Phil

 

You mean that they are democracies with emancipation for all?

Phil

 

While UK-Israel relations were strained in the past for obvious
reasons it seems likely we have been actively supporting them for 20
years. The UK has certainly been complicit in allowing their nuclear
arms industry to flourish to it's current level of 400 deliverable
weapons. Significantly it seems to have been quite voluntary support.

France supported them in earlier days but it was in greater part a
strategy to develop their own capability after the US embargo.
That Germany assisted has been put down to political blackmail,
threats to reveal Nazi connections of senior business and political
people and feelings of national guilt.

In an amusing twist, the Arab nations screech incessantly about the
USA supplying arms and finance to Israel. While there is a powerful
Jewish lobby in America there is little doubt that America acted in
part to prevent an embattled Israel deploying nuclear weapons against
Egypt and Syria (1). One does not want nuclear war anywhere near the
oil reserves.

(1) it seems likely now that the USSR had nuclear support for Egypt
berthed in Alexandria so Goldie didn't quite have quite the upper hand
she believed

'Hog

 

'Strained in the past'! We were the only Western Europe country that
*didn't* vote for the partition of Palestine!

'It seems likely'? Well - thats definate then..

Err - try (in no particular order) France, South Africa[1], India[2]
and Turkey as places that helped Israel develop their nukes.

Phil.

[1] They had a quite good relationship goin on during the Apartheid
years. Joint weapons and technology programs.
[2] India was happy to help particularly when ruled by hardline Hindu
parties. Israel has an enemy in common in the Moslems.

 

Phil Launchbury wrote

How do you know. Sadly the details of what people, other than those
making the message, are not recorded in any detail. you can only
suppose what was actually believed. I suspect though that in some
respects you may be right and the world does now, as then, regard it is
just so much new age mumbo jumbo.

 

You used the example of getting flogged for looking at someone's wife.
I am telling you that if looking at other people's wife is your thing,
you're better off doing it in Dubai, Abu Dhabi or Bahrain than Israel.