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Facebook Postings Lead To Arrest for Heresy In the West Bank
forand writes "Using screen shots of a customer's Facebook profile, owners of a West Bank internet cafe helped Palestinian intelligence forces capture a man accused of heresy." According to sources quoted in the story, residents of both Gaza and the West Bank face ongoing scrutiny of their online activities; in Gaza, "Internet cafe owners are forced to monitor customers' online activity and alert intelligence officials if they see anything critical of the militant group or that violates Hamas' stern interpretation of Islam."
A mysterious blogger who set off an uproar in the Arab world by claiming he was God and hurling insults at the Prophet Muhammad is now behind bars — caught in a sting that used Facebook to track him down.
I found myself surprised that Palestine is so easy to troll. Then I was even more surprised that I was surprised even for a second.
Many in this conservative Muslim town say that isn't enough, and suggested he should be killed for renouncing Islam. Even family members say he should remain behind bars for life.
I have never respected trolls before, but I guess there's a first time for everything. If he does get executed, someone should really saint him. Pastafarians maybe.
Actually, if they weren't, they might not have voted Hamas in in the first place.
A common misconception. Hamas was voted in not because of the anti-Israel agenda, but because they promised to fight the extremely corrupt Fatah regime that preceded it. That was the focus of their election campaign, and that was what actually got them the votes. That would have happened whether they were oppressed (with or without quotes) or not.
Shachar
Apparently you're also too lazy to educate yourself on Christianity in Africa as well. I live in Mozambique, have lived in Botswana, Angola, Namibia and South Africa and traveled extensively to all of their neighbors. I can tell you that nowhere in (at least southern and east) Africa is there Christian oppression like this. There are many many people who are critical of Christianity in all of those southern African countries and there are no consequences like this in the least. Sure all of these countries have their problems but nothing in this vein.
Honestly, the only time you'll run into religious oppression like this is from muslim communities. Mozambique has a large muslim population (especially the north of the country) and there are many people who are oppressed because of their decisions to leave islam there.
I think islam has specific tendencies that lead to specific abuses. I think christianity has specific tendencies that lead to specific abuses. They often overlap but in this area they don't. At the core of each religion, neither promotes these tendencies or abuses. Yet because people get corrupt and are power-hungry you get wild derivations from central ideas in a religion. For example, for some reason, christian leaders who get large followings, often end up taking advantage financially of their followers who come looking for a blessing of some kind (healing, personal financial blessing, etc.) and I've never seen that in islam. Islam, by contrast, when embraced at a government level tends to overbear followers and suppress voluntary belief or non-belief. Neither religion teaches these things in their basics yet men (usually not women) who end up in religious leadership often abuse those they lead.
It helps us in the long run. Sure, in the short run, supplanting a monster with a bigger, more atrocious one helps. But where does that get us?
If there is anything to the claim that we represent the "free world", we have to play relatively clean, lest it becomes nothing but shallow rhetoric.
Ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.
well if you're a stateless refugee than you have no individual liberty...if objectively looked at who Hamas are and what they are fighting for, you'd see they have everything in common with people who want freedom.
try doing it sometime. Imagine you come from another planet, look at the worlds conflicts from an outsiders perspective...you'll see things arent as clean cut as what the TV tells you.
Dude, honestly? Given that kids there grow up watching a rabbit puppet wax enthusiastic about eating Jews[1] and a Mickey Mouse-alike raving about martyrdom on the phone with kids[2], then it's quite obvious Palestinians do not give a crap about their children.
1. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jm8w7_P8wZ0&feature=related
2. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gi-c6lbFGC4&feature=related
Having to take a loyalty oath to the "Jewish" state or risk losing your citizenship sure seems like a type of Blasphemy...as it only applies to Non-Jews and they have to swore to loyalty to a "Jewish" state.
but as you and I well know the only difference between Israel and Hamas is one are fanatics with good PR the other are just poor refugees.
Lets see what the the Rabbis have to say
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7t_LxpCY2G8&feature=player_embedded
According to the book’s author, Rabbi Yitzhak Shapira, “Non-Jews are “uncompassionate by nature” and should be killed in order to “curb their evil inclinations.” “If we kill a gentile who has has violated one of the seven commandments there is nothing wrong with the murder,” Shapira insisted. Citing Jewish law as his source he declared: “There is justification for killing babies if it is clear that they will grow up to harm us, and in such a situation they may be harmed deliberately, and not only during combat with adults.”
And this fits right into thinking of Israels current President who in the past few weeks has been speaking Population transfers of Non-Jews out of Israel...which of course is necessary if Israel is to remain a "Democratic" and Jewish state. If you're going to lose your majority in the state, you just forcibly remove the people living there. Thats democracy, right?
Ah, Israel, why are the Palestenians so angry with you, is it really that hard to understand? Really?
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/lieberman-presents-plans-for-population-exchange-at-un-1.316197
Freedom. I do not think this word means what you think it means.
Or you. Try living in a country that is actively oppressed, where the supply of practically everything is subject to the whims of some outside force, which invades every now and then with military vehicles and just might shoot your friends, bulldoze your house, or yourself. Freedom gets a much more simple and immediate meaning there than "freedom of speech on the web". That's how the human mind works - you need to have your base desires satisfied before you start thinking about more abstract things.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Palestinians can't even handle interactions among themselves peacefully when they're busy throwing rival politicians off roofs[1] in Gaza and viciously beating their own civilians[2].
If that surprises you, them you obviously haven't looked at (for example) just what the IRA got up to during the Troubles in Northern Ireland. We're only just starting to track down a decent number of the corpses of civilians who were taken from their homes by IRA hit squads never to be seen from again. Then there's the kneecappings and the extortion and the general organised crime. Fraternising with members of the wrong Christian sect was very bad and often fatal idea. The IRA, at their peak, made Hamas and co look positively pleasant - and their equivalents on the Unionist side weren't exactly better.
Oh, and did I mention that US politicians have been protecting IRA members from being extradited for their own political advantage? The IRA had a lot of political and financial support within the US, and an awful lot of their weapons came from there IIRC.
You know that Islam doesn't recognize the separation of church and state, don't you?
Neither do mainstream forms of Judaism, and a lot of really influential branches of Christianity in the US - especially the fundamentalist ones - don't either. In practice, this manifests itself as the incorporation of large chunks of Jewish religious law into state law in Israel and systematic, organised attempts to create a religious state in the US by powerful groups linked to the Republican party.
Actually, what's odd about Islam is that Muslims, like Christians, are generally supposed to recognise and obey the laws of the state. (What's even weirder is that in theory Jews aren't meant to recognise the laws or courts of non-Jewish states in which they reside. In practice this is generally ignored, with the odd exception. For example, the reason that sharia courts are legal here in the UK is because of a law created to allow the establishment of Jewish religious courts. The reason we can't change the law to stop sharia courts is because the Jewish population will kick up a fuss, not the Muslims.)
The problem is that we have no good way of dealing with these lunatics when large parts of entire societies are thinking like this. It's like the West in the Middle Ages.
We do have a good way of dealing with these lunatics--don't deal at all with them. The problem of the West vs. Islamic fundamentalists is just that these people are sitting on oil. If it weren't for that, we could just break off relations and let them figure it out for the next few centuries. Instead, we dirty ourselves by dealing with the likes of the Saudis. And to a lesser degree, we dirty ourselves by dealing with Israel as well, who seems to be rapidly picking up on the intolerance and religious fundamentalism in the region (maybe it's in the water?).
In this case, it means the freedom to be oppressive and violate the freedom of others, in accordance with their religion.
Blasphemy as a crime is common in most religious societies. John William Gott was the last person in Britain to be imprisoned for heresy, in 1921. The last person to be executed for heresy in Britain was Thomas Aikenhead in 1697. Both had been critical of Christianity. The fact that Hamas are only going to imprison this man, rather than execute him, suggests that their law is only 90 years behind that of Britain.