Looking for some sanity in an insane world. Interests in Middle East history and politics, and the rise of Islamist extremism. Back on here after a long break.
@khalidi79397 Rare are the voices willing to articulate what the future should look like. I always applaud those who offer a better vision and have the courage to stick their necks out for it, especially when doing so is unpopular.
You can continue to repeat the lies, it won’t make them any more real. It just shows how pathetic you are — it’s all you’ve got. You know full well why Israel was in Lebanon in the 1970s, when terrorists used it as a launch pad for attacks into Israel.
Some of the most notorious attacks included the 1970 Avivim School Bus Massacre, where militants fired on a school bus near the Lebanese border, killing 12 civilians, including nine children; the 1974 Kiryat Shmona Massacre, in which terrorists crossed from Lebanon, entered an apartment building, and murdered 18 civilians, including children; and the 1974 Ma’alot Massacre, where DFLP terrorists infiltrated from Lebanon, seized a school full of teenagers on a class trip, and killed 22 schoolchildren and three adults during a hostage crisis.
The decade also saw the 1972 Lod Airport Massacre, when attackers acting on behalf of the PFLP opened fire and threw grenades in the arrivals hall of Israel’s main airport, killing 26 people and wounding dozens more. In 1975, terrorists arriving by sea seized the Savoy Hotel in Tel Aviv, taking hostages and killing civilians before being stopped by Israeli commandos. In 1978, Fatah terrorists launched the Coastal Road Massacre, landing on Israel’s Mediterranean coast, hijacking a bus, and murdering 38 civilians, including 13 children, in what was one of the deadliest terrorist attacks in Israel’s history at the time.
Even the 1972 Munich Massacre, in which 11 Israeli Olympic athletes were murdered in Germany, was carried out by a Palestinian terrorist organization linked to the broader militant movement that had established a major presence in Lebanon.
By the mid 1970s Fatah, the PFLP, the DFLP, and the PFLP-GC were operating extensive infrastructure in southern Lebanon and using it to launch attacks against Israeli civilian targets. The biggest attacks, particularly those targeting northern Israeli communities and schoolchildren, originated from across the Lebanese border.
So fuck you.
@RabbiPoupko So many Canadians are sheep. It’s a knee jerk reflex that comes from years of droning on about Islamophobia by the Liberals. I’ve cut several people out of my life because of their “feels” on issues they know nothing about.
Nobody I take seriously on this topic pretends they are. Yet conversations about extremism and widespread beliefs within Islam that are incompatible with modern society and contemporary notions of human rights are still routinely shut down with accusations of Islamophobia and similar labels.
Face it: when those claiming to speak on behalf of the Muslim community respond to uncomfortable questions by trying to silence the discussion, they are not projecting confidence in their position. To anyone knowledgeable enough to see past the Pollyanna platitudes, they present as people with something to hide.
What happens to Lebanon the day Iran’s occupation ends?
For decades, Lebanon hasn't been a failed state by accident. It's been a hostage. A country with a flag, a parliament, and an army, all operating in the shadow of a militia that answers to Tehran. Not Beirut.
Imagine a Lebanon where the only group with rockets is the national army. Where the airport isn't a smuggling hub for Iranian weapons. Where the south isn't a launchpad for someone else's war.
That Lebanon already exists in memory. It was the Beirut that rivaled Paris. The banking capital of the Middle East. A place where Christians, Sunnis, Shia, and Druze built one of the most cosmopolitan societies in the region.
What killed it wasn't sectarian difference. Plenty of nations are diverse. What killed it was an armed faction that placed loyalty to a foreign theocracy above loyalty to its own people.
Lebanon can't be free until the monopoly on violence belongs to the state. Not to a party. Not to a "resistance." To the state.
A free Lebanon needs three things:
A real army that doesn't share the country with a parallel one.
A border with Israel that's a border. Quiet, recognized, normal.
And a Gulf and Western world willing to pour investment into a Beirut that's finally a safe bet again.
Free Lebanese people from Hezbollah, and you don't just save Lebanon.
You hand the entire region its old jewel back.
@CivilRightsNick@terrynewman I’m not seeing much evidence of that in Canada. That’s not where the majority of the hate is coming from —- it’s the left and parts of the Muslim community.
@lesliechurch@SPVM Aren’t you a Liberal MP? You’re part of this. The PM’s big middle finger move of appointing a terrorist cheerleader and a lawyer who defends hate rallies to the new hate council sent a very clear message to the hate mongers. Who are you trying to gaslight with this nonsense?
@gary_srp@Arturmaks This is on YOUR watch. YOU part of the government that has encouraged this violence for two and a half years. Appointing a Hezbollah cheerleader and a lawyer who has defended hate rallies is just the latest signal you’ve sent to the hate mongers.
They’re listening.
@KavitaAlguMD The racist hypocrisy is your ongoing refusal to acknowledge that neither Gaza or Hezbollah would be in a war right now if they hadn't invaded Israel and attacked its civilians with rockets on a repeated basis since October 2023. Actions have consequences.