An Israeli military spokesperson confirmed that there were “hostage situations” in the southern city of Ofakim and the nearby kibbutz of Beeri.
Hamas said it had taken “dozens” of Israeli soldiers hostage and moved them to the Gaza Strip as footage emerged appearing to show gunmen in military fatigues leading a group of mostly barefoot women down a street in Israel.
The announcement and video verified by NBC News came hours after Hamas launched a deadly land, air and sea attack and fired a huge barrage of rockets at Israel.
Can we stop calling everything fascist? Hamas is a terrible organization but they’re not fascist, they’re a theocratic jihadist group. It waters down us talking about actual fascists like Russia when we call every bad thing fascism.
Politically there’s no difference, in the categorical sense, that is, isomorphic things are equal. But occasionally it’s even clearer as e.g. the Nazis, too, could be called a theocratic jihadist group if you squint just right: They had their own esoteric system, and they definitely had jihadist fervour. Merging the state and religion was very much among their stated goal and all their internal politics were geared towards that measure.
Russia, as of yet, isn’t fascist – though Putin is now going ahead to make it so: Previously, as a Russian you were supposed to be depoliticised, now schools are indoctrinating kids in a fascist understanding of war and struggle, they are getting politicised in the image of the regime, to make sure they’ll be willing cannon fodder.
And just for completeness sake: Likud, as of yet, doesn’t seem to be fascist, at least going by Umberto Eco, only like two of 14 points are met. The settler parties to the right of them definitely are, though, which makes Likud collaborators and enablers so don’t feel bad about calling them fascists.
Can we stop calling everything in the Middle East theocratic?
Hamas is a violent anti-democractic, and misogynistic movement centered around past humiliations and blood and soil type motivations. They tick all the boxes for fascist.
Putin tries to mix the Orthodox church into his rhetoric too you know. But no one buys it with Putin. People buy it when Hamas does it because of the assumption that Muslims are primitives that only understand religion and nothing else.
People are people everywhere. Palestinians are just as susceptible to fascist rhetoric as Russians, Americans, or anyone else in the world. American fascism is the Christian cross wrapped in the American flag. Religion being used as a tool a fascists shouldn’t surprise you, it’s the norm for these assholes.
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What is your description of fascism then?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascism
Notably, when comparing with Hamas, 1) religion is of secondary consideration in fascism, and 2) facism tends to create cults of personality such as Hitler, Putin, etc. Fascism will always put party before everything, unlike religiously motivated groups. And in Islam particularly, it’s difficult for one charismatic leader to create a cult of personality because such a leader is always standing in the shadow of Mohammed.
Most importantly, fascism involves a comprehensive transformation of society, with a particular focus on military expansion. It’s very difficult for a group under siege to be fascist as they simply don’t have the option for expansion.
Jihadis share many similar aspects with fascists, authoritarians, etc, but those are means to an end. In fascism, the means ARE the end, there’s no real plan, the fascist dictator just tries to ride the wave of nationalism as long as they can.
Palestinians all over the world chant “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” at demonstrations. This is a reference to lands that include Israel. So there is a desire for a non-democracy to expand into the territory of a democracy. This feeling is so pervasive in Palestinian culture it’s chanted in demonstrations on the other side of the world. Note there is no reference to any religious sites, simply to land the others have that they believe should be theirs.
There have even been calls for the ethnic cleansing of Jews by Palestinians living in western countries as well. “Push them into the sea, wipe them off the map” kinds of things. Why would someone not even living there be saying these things if it’s not a societal transformation?
If you look at the actual propaganda, very little references religion. It’s mostly about how the land rightfully belongs to Palestinians. Going on and on about the 1948 map, the Ottoman Empire etc. The only thing I see that’s somewhat religious is references to the times of the Crusades. “We’ll win in time like we did during the Crusades.” But note that’s also a reference to past greatness, one of the most defining characteristics of fascism. I mean where does the word fascism come from?
Yes and what exactly is the plan in this current aggression by Hamas? Do you feel like what they’re doing right now is part of a real plan? Nope. What is the plan for the many rocket attacks Hamas has done in the past? There is no plan. Hamas needs to kill Israelis to keep power. Do you think the Hamas leadership does these things because Allah told them to? Or do they do it to prevent their followers from leaving Hamas and joining some other group that is willing to execute attacks on Israel?
That’s the nature of fascism. You can get control over people by making them hate but you can’t allow that hatred to dissipate or you lose control. Hamas attacks Israel because if they don’t, they lose power. Sure they’ll use religious terminology to make their actions seem more legitimate to their followers, but in the end it boils down to blood and soil, promises of restoring past greatness, use of violence to maintain power.
That’s such a stretch they should call you Mr Incredible.
I don’t know why I bothered, I knew even as I was typing that you weren’t interested in learning. I knew you were going to pick as many individual parts of that definition as you could and try to force the square peg of Hamas into the round hole of fascism. Because the alternative is that maybe you were wrong about something, and oh no we can’t have that.
We really need to do a better job funding our schools.
He thinks religion isn’t the end goal, but instead a tool used by fascists leaders whose end goal is actually that: fascism.
You think the people calling the shots are actually devout and that fascism is a tool to achieve some religious goal.
The former is a safer bet, since it isn’t predicated on needing to buy into the idea that the sort of people who orchestrate these acts are inherently principled and devout people who just have a very unfortunate interpretation of Islam.
Call it fascist+ with a fancy name if you will, but it’s nothing to get so worked up over.
There is no fascism though. Just some similar elements.
It’s definitely worth getting worked up over the zoomer tendency to call damn near everything fascism. Even the Barbie movie made fun of it. It’s watering the term down to meaninglesness. Which is very dangerous when there are real actual fascists on the rise in the world.
We really need to do a better job in teaching better manners.
When you have no logical response to something a person says to you, do you consider it good form to resort to… well ad hominem sounds too classy for what you wrote… Shit tier elementary school “You dumb I’m smart” asshat behaviour?
Learn to do better at the conversation stuff mate.
I know when actually arguing is hopeless. Literally nothing I could say would change your mind at all, no matter how much I prove you wrong, so why waste the effort? Better to just insult you, at least that’s a little fun and low effort.