Taylan (Kemalist Turkish Cat) on Nostr: No, someone who supports Jihadists is basically by definition not a moderate Muslim. ...
No, someone who supports Jihadists is basically by definition not a moderate Muslim. Growing up in Turkey, it was common sense to see Jihadists as being extremists and terrorists that you don't associate with.
I wasn't Muslim myself anyway, and maybe there were a lot of Muslims who secretly thought otherwise, but it seemed like the societal consensus to me. Not surprising, given the power of secular and other modern values baked into modern Turkish identity. I wouldn't know how it is in other countries with a Muslim majority population.
That being said, I think there's probably a lot of people who would say something like "I don't support Jihadists, but..." and then go on some mental gymnastics about how Hamas and Hesbollah are "resistance" movements instead. At which point you have to ask whether the problem is the person's morals, or their knowledge.
My German gramps is very passionately pro Palestine. My mom isn't that deep into the issue but seems to trust him and agrees. We just had a little chat with her while watching this video, and apparently my mom thought that Hamas was "originally just a resistance movement that was pushed into extremism." I said I doubt it and looked up their founding principles, and sure enough, they were founded on explicitly Islamist and Jihadist principles, written down on their charter. She kept wanting to take the woman's side and was automatically skeptical towards the Jewish professor, but had to admit at the end that she's bonkers when the bit about the Hesbollah leader's quote came up. And then she ended it with "of course she's just one person and the question is whether she's representative."
So, I think both among Muslims themselves, and among "pro-Palestine" westerners who aren't Muslims, there's a problem with not knowing, or refusing to acknowledge, that organisations like Hamas and Hesbollah are deeply antisemitic and have Jihadist ideals baked in. They imagine a brave resistance story, where Israel is backed by British colonialist and American imperialist forces and is therefore simply The Bad Guy, and thus the opposition must be The Good Guys.
Long story short: Hanlon's Razor :blobcat-sad:
I wasn't Muslim myself anyway, and maybe there were a lot of Muslims who secretly thought otherwise, but it seemed like the societal consensus to me. Not surprising, given the power of secular and other modern values baked into modern Turkish identity. I wouldn't know how it is in other countries with a Muslim majority population.
That being said, I think there's probably a lot of people who would say something like "I don't support Jihadists, but..." and then go on some mental gymnastics about how Hamas and Hesbollah are "resistance" movements instead. At which point you have to ask whether the problem is the person's morals, or their knowledge.
My German gramps is very passionately pro Palestine. My mom isn't that deep into the issue but seems to trust him and agrees. We just had a little chat with her while watching this video, and apparently my mom thought that Hamas was "originally just a resistance movement that was pushed into extremism." I said I doubt it and looked up their founding principles, and sure enough, they were founded on explicitly Islamist and Jihadist principles, written down on their charter. She kept wanting to take the woman's side and was automatically skeptical towards the Jewish professor, but had to admit at the end that she's bonkers when the bit about the Hesbollah leader's quote came up. And then she ended it with "of course she's just one person and the question is whether she's representative."
So, I think both among Muslims themselves, and among "pro-Palestine" westerners who aren't Muslims, there's a problem with not knowing, or refusing to acknowledge, that organisations like Hamas and Hesbollah are deeply antisemitic and have Jihadist ideals baked in. They imagine a brave resistance story, where Israel is backed by British colonialist and American imperialist forces and is therefore simply The Bad Guy, and thus the opposition must be The Good Guys.
Long story short: Hanlon's Razor :blobcat-sad: