I don’t think so. Religion and ethnicity are convenient pretexts for stealing resources from one another or enslaving another culture for material benefit.
Go right back to the time of the Crusades, in the Rhineland massacres Christians were killing Jewish people and looting their homes. Someone always stands to gain.
Go right back to the time of the Crusades, in the Rhineland massacres Christians were killing Jewish people and looting their homes.
Around the year 800, many Saxons were killed, tortured or forcibly baptised on the orders of Charlemagne, which German paganism could hardly cope with. Every religion has its violent phase.
Sure. From memory the only one I’ve noticed not having violence is Jainism.
But I don’t think religion causes the violence. I think it’s a useful tool to manipulate people into violence. What is happening in Israel/Palestine is about land and arms deals and power elites using wars to cement their political power.
From the very start, the conflict was about which religion should rule the area. If it was about resources, they could hardly have picked a worse place
From the very start, the conflict was about which religion should rule the area.
What? If we’re really talking about “the very start”, then you couldn’t be more wrong. The first real diaspora of Jews being pushed out of Israel was started by the Romans, who famously didn’t care what religion you were so long as you paid unto Caesar that which is Caesars.
they could hardly have picked a worse place
I’m guessing you think the entirety of the Levant is one big sand dune or something? It’s literally known as the fertile crescent dude, and in modernity it’s strategically located near some of the largest energy reserves on the planet.
Well, that doesn’t really work either. Palestinians and Jews cohabitated the land for years before any kind of conflict occurred, and the conflict that led to Israel being recognized as a nation state began over a land dispute between neighbors.
Religion has been used to fan the flames, but it wasn’t the initial reason for the conflict. The idea that Islam is some kind of war like religion of intolerance is a modern notion. It can be traced to the spread of a particularly militant version of Sunni Islam as a response to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.
Land use tensions are not uncommon in areas where the resources are limited.
There’s no point in going back hundreds of years on this. The reality on the ground is that these people are there because their ancestors had some connection to that part of the Fertile Crescent.
But the reason they are being urged to fight is the usual colonial stuff about land use and political control.
I don’t think so. Religion and ethnicity are convenient pretexts for stealing resources from one another or enslaving another culture for material benefit.
Go right back to the time of the Crusades, in the Rhineland massacres Christians were killing Jewish people and looting their homes. Someone always stands to gain.
Around the year 800, many Saxons were killed, tortured or forcibly baptised on the orders of Charlemagne, which German paganism could hardly cope with. Every religion has its violent phase.
Sure. From memory the only one I’ve noticed not having violence is Jainism.
But I don’t think religion causes the violence. I think it’s a useful tool to manipulate people into violence. What is happening in Israel/Palestine is about land and arms deals and power elites using wars to cement their political power.
From the very start, the conflict was about which religion should rule the area. If it was about resources, they could hardly have picked a worse place
What? If we’re really talking about “the very start”, then you couldn’t be more wrong. The first real diaspora of Jews being pushed out of Israel was started by the Romans, who famously didn’t care what religion you were so long as you paid unto Caesar that which is Caesars.
I’m guessing you think the entirety of the Levant is one big sand dune or something? It’s literally known as the fertile crescent dude, and in modernity it’s strategically located near some of the largest energy reserves on the planet.
Yeah if it wasn’t clear I’m talking about the modern state of Israel
Well, that doesn’t really work either. Palestinians and Jews cohabitated the land for years before any kind of conflict occurred, and the conflict that led to Israel being recognized as a nation state began over a land dispute between neighbors.
Religion has been used to fan the flames, but it wasn’t the initial reason for the conflict. The idea that Islam is some kind of war like religion of intolerance is a modern notion. It can be traced to the spread of a particularly militant version of Sunni Islam as a response to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.
Well, imo to state that the conflict is not about religion is like claiming the US civil war wasn’t about slavery
The Arab Palestinian force that fought the zionists called themselves the ‘Army of the Holy War’. Surely that was free from any religious reasoning
Land use tensions are not uncommon in areas where the resources are limited.
There’s no point in going back hundreds of years on this. The reality on the ground is that these people are there because their ancestors had some connection to that part of the Fertile Crescent.
But the reason they are being urged to fight is the usual colonial stuff about land use and political control.