Gaza's Irrational Hatred

[Dan Z]

At every level of human interaction, when people hate enough they become irrational.

The hatred between most (not all) Israelis and Palestinians has been festering for generations and it is now spilling forth before the eyes of a disbelieving world in an unteathered violent frenzy. This is something much darker than a simple regional conflict.

The October Hamas massacre of Jewish civilians was the pinnacle of evil irrationality - with no clear value aside from satiating a blood-feud. It was the decision of hate-clouded minds, who foolishly rationalized some potential advantage in this ferrel act of violence. Cold-blooded killings, rape, terror, mutilation - just sickening. Cries of outrage and calls for justice were fully understandable in the face of such an atrocity.

But the vengeful Israeli response in Gaza, rationalized as routing out Hamas, has long surpassed anything resembling justice...the death and destruction of the lives and livelihoods of innocents has become a rank evil in its own right. Children starving, families buried alive in their bombed-out homes, desperate people gunned down in the chaos of too little aid - just sickening. And the US government's support for the Israeli efforts has contributed to weaponizing and legitimizing this lunacy.

This is more of a pained rant than anything else - I've got nothing to suggest other than recognizing that this is not your garden-variety regional conflict. Honestly, I never expected much rationality from Hamas, which has always been a terrorist organization bent on the elimination of Israel "from the river to the sea." But in this case, even though the Israeli government presents as a principled Western democracy, it is no rational actor either - looking more terroristic every day.

I hope the Biden administration comes to its senses immediately - and asserts what pressure it can muster to help end the carnage.

[temporal1]

^^i’ve read enough to not be ready to give up on Israel.
If you haven’t read/listened to their side, their description of what they’re doing, i can understand complete dismay.

6 hrs ago / “US says Israel ‘more or less’ accepts framework deal for Gaza ceasefire”
There is an agreement in place for a potential six-week truce in Gaza, a US official says, and Hamas must now decide.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/3/2 ... -ceasefire

^^Before this, and all along (i’ve read) Hamas can release hostages, stop violence, Israel would stop.

In the past, “no negotiating with terrorists” has been the rule.

i don’t believe everyone on earth operates under a common sense of morality.
terrorism, i.e., attacking/ambushing the defenseless, is not a common civilized morality.

it’s immoral, amoral, and cowardly. a child can grasp this.

Hamas has a crazy amount of power in this, with no perceptible conscience.

^^i believe they’re working toward a 6 week ceasefire (i hope would become permanent).

This morning, i read K Harris is demanding an end to violence in Gaza. (sigh, i presume this is an attempt to position her for the POTUS campaign.)

There’s a lot to rant about. U.S. attempts at appearing to be “wise counsel” fall flat.

People’s nerves are on edge. Mine are.

[Josh]

t1,

Your presence in this forum is amazing in the sense that your posts perfectly capture the zeitgeist of mainstream right wing political thinking. Right down to the evangelical Zionism.

Re-read what Dan Z said. I agree with him that part of the problem here is that the Israeli government is looking more and more, like terrorists, as Hamas does. That’s a very big problem, and one the Israeli government is being quite hard headed about refusing to listen to other nations telling them it’s a big problem.

It would obvious be wrong to support Hamas. So what we do when Hamas’s opponent is also becoming very bloodthirsty and irrationally violent?

[Szdfan]

^^i’ve read enough to not be ready to give up on Israel.
If you haven’t read/listened to their side, their description of what they’re doing, i can understand complete dismay.

Over 30,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli military action in Gaza since, October 7. That number is probably low because it doesn't take into account the bodies that haven't yet been recovered in the rubble from airstrikes.

.

How does Israel's actions fit with the reverence for life that you frequently espouse?

[Ken]

I'm not sure it is all that irrational. Much of the hatred seems pretty rational to me.

10/7 was not irrational hatred on the part of Hamas. It was a calculated and deliberate attack. At the encouragement of the US, both Saudi Arabia and Israel were reaching normalization of relations and potential peace agreements that were basically leaving the Palestinians and their issues by the wayside. 10/7 blew all of that up and has since galvanized the Arab world in favor of Palestinians. It was a calculated strategy and seems to be working. Israel is now more isolated in the middle east and worldwide than it has been in decades. That is a win for Hamas. And during this current war and all the previous ones, Israel has never failed to give Palestinians plenty of legitimate reasons to hate.

And as for Israeli hatred of Palestinians? They have been suffering terrorist attacks for over half a century. So that is understandable too and not particularly irrational either. Palestinian ideology as expressed by Hamas is the ideology of genocide and elimination of Israel. It is entirely understandable that such an ideology would inspire hate on the other side.

Now one might say say that ALL hate is irrational. But if one is going to distinguish between rational hatred and irrational hatred it seems to me that most of what we are seeing in Gaza and Israel is pretty rational (i.e. based on actual reasons).

Irrational hatred would be things like antisemitism here in the US where there are certain racist types who simply hate Jews for no rational reason other than perhaps absurd conspiracy theories or simply the fact that they like to hate.

[Bootstrap]

I'm not sure it is all that irrational. Much of the hatred seems pretty rational to me.

I don't think hatred is ever rational. Hatred does not live in the reasonable, rational part of the mind.

[Lex]

https://jewishcontributions.com/assets/ ... abinet.png
https://jewishcontributions.com/assets/ ... ildren.png
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FXxIVu7UUAQHK72.jpg

[temporal1]

I'm not sure it is all that irrational. Much of the hatred seems pretty rational to me.

I don't think hatred is ever rational. Hatred does not live in the reasonable, rational part of the mind.

Hatred isn’t the way of Jesus. Jesus called His to be irrational. To reject human reasoning.
It’s not easy to accept/understand human reasoning once one has accepted Jesus Christ.

ra·tion·al / adjective
1. based on or in accordance with reason or logic.
"I'm sure there's a perfectly rational explanation"

^^human reasoning
loving enemies is not ordinary human reasoning. it’s The Way of Peace, Jesus’ Way, not rational.

- - - - - - -

(i’m unusually busy just now.)
Not that i have anything valuable to contribute to talk of war, i don’t doubt i “make no sense.”
i presume i’m very very bad at military-political strategy. maybe not worse than K.Harris. (CIC?) i pray not.

Possibly like DanZ, i’ve been specially unnerved since the HAMAS attack, even considering Ukraine seems far from over.
i’m not sure why it’s hit me so hard. Probably the many campus protests which seem perpetually on the edge of violence.
On campuses and elsewhere.

MSM is all in to villify Israel, which is heads-up that there is probably more to the situation than most know.
Caution is advised.

i’ll be following this topic as i can. not as much as i would like.

[Ken]

I'm not sure it is all that irrational. Much of the hatred seems pretty rational to me.

I don't think hatred is ever rational. Hatred does not live in the reasonable, rational part of the mind.

In the title of this thread, Dan uses the term "irrational hatred." If all hatred is irrational then no need for that qualifier and we can just talk about hatred in Gaza.

But I do disagree. I think hatred can be very rational or reasonable given the circumstances. I think, for example, during WW2, it was perfectly rational for the Jews to hate the Nazis who were persecuting them and trying to extinguish them from the face of the earth. That was entirely reasonable and rational. Likewise, I think it is perfectly rational for Ukrainians who are living under the genocidal bombardment of civilian areas by Russia to hate Russia for what they are doing. No irrationality there. And yes, I think it is perfectly reasonable for Gaza civilians to hate Israel for what they are doing in Gaza. Rational as in the hate comes from reasons. Irrational would mean there is no reason for the hate.

One might argue that it isn't Christian to hate. Or that it might not be healthy to hate. But those are different arguments not based on rationality.

[Szdfan]

I'm not sure it is all that irrational. Much of the hatred seems pretty rational to me.

I don't think hatred is ever rational. Hatred does not live in the reasonable, rational part of the mind.

In the title of this thread, Dan uses the term "irrational hatred." If all hatred is irrational then no need for that qualifier and we can just talk about hatred in Gaza.

But I do disagree. I think hatred can be very rational or reasonable given the circumstances. I think, for example, during WW2, it was perfectly rational for the Jews to hate the Nazis who were persecuting them and trying to extinguish them from the face of the earth. That was entirely reasonable and rational. Likewise, I think it is perfectly rational for Ukrainians who are living under the genocidal bombardment of civilian areas by Russia to hate Russia for what they are doing. No irrationality there. And yes, I think it is perfectly reasonable for Gaza civilians to hate Israel for what they are doing in Gaza. Rational as in the hate comes from reasons. Irrational would mean there is no reason for the hate.

One might argue that it isn't Christian to hate. Or that it might not be healthy to hate. But those are different arguments not based on rationality.

Even irrational hatred has its own sense of logic and rationality. The antisemitism by the Nazis was irrational, yet it had its own internal logic. One of the things that makes the Holocaust so frightening is that it's not just the end result of a madman's rantings, but that it had its own logic and rationality. The basic premises are irrational and evil, but the logic that flowed out of it -- that the Jews had to be systematically exterminated -- does follow a type of logical progression (I'm explaining this very badly).

People generally don't see themselves as irrational or evil. People don't see their own bigotries as irrational hatred.