It is complex and yet it isn’t. There are understandable psychological and historical causes for the current state. It is not black and white. But nothing is. We just want to make things to fit nice boxes.

If you want to understand it, you need to understand radicalization and how it applies to MENA including Israel. Actions do not come from the vacuum and people are messy. Every person has an agenda.

At the same time, in this specific situation, there are what according to well-established parameters amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity. While there is terrorism committed by Palestinian groups, these crimes are largely committed by Israel. It might be that if the power imbalance were a little less we would see similar actions from the Palestinian state. But it is not.

Just in the last week, we have seen apartheid, ethnic cleansing, what could be genocide, collective punishment, embargo and cutting vital supplies to the area you are occupying. This list is not exhaustive. This is univocally wrong.

The most complex part is not understanding it. The most complex part is solving it.

While Israel is part of the cause of Islamic terrorism in Europe, I think we should not pat too much on our backs. Yes, our countries’ positions taking sides on Israel is problematic as hell and so is us being tied to the US in the minds of many people outside Europe. But so is our own Islamophobia. I get where it comes from, but othering and sidelining people will lead to further radicalization. Which for people whose Islamophobia is rooted in current oppression in many Islamic societies, is entirely opposite of what they want.

Which was influenced largely by the antisemitism of the West and the rise of Zionism for Jewish people which is partly radicalization as a response to thousands of years of oppression. But Brits were still in power with colonialism in full force.

Fits because even Finnish Nazis don’t seem to know it.

I think the beauty of Fediverse is that the majority of people can find pretty amazing instances for themselves. I could say the same of mine.

History fits the majority of Eastern European countries but yes as said they are Estonian. Actually, now that I think about it can’t really think of any Eastern European countries that it doesn’t fit at all.

I get it. Part of my job is human rights advocacy. It is highly depressive and is getting to the point where I don’t really think we can change things really for the better in at least the next decades. If we had fewer existential threats I would think based on history that the day when we again decide human rights are a good idea would come again. I am purely doing it for the belief that defending human rights even when not changing anything is worth it.

But they don’t actually want to help long term. They see collapse as a chance to seize power for their own benefit as even the loose control we have to check the power of the powerful is too much for them.

People have no idea what it means. Like no grasp even when stories are everywhere. I’m an aid worker. Focusing on refugees. They can’t even imagine what they go through and what the people who never got to me/safety survived until unsurvivable came in front of them.

They are a Salafi Jihadist group but they had their own idiocy added to Salfism which in itself has roots in Wahhabism.

I have lived in multiple as non-Muslims for long periods of time. My group of friends is pretty varied. I am not disagreeing with that in any way. A lot of Muslims are problematic at best. Why it is so is a lot more complex than just Islam. The skewed image comes not from the fact that a lot of the criticism of Islam, and especially Islamic countries, is not true. It comes from not knowing what religion says theologically, what the jurisprudence of Islam says and what Muslims actually do both in good and bad. Instead in the West we majorly hear about negative things without similar group understanding we have with Christians. When we hear that Iran is shooting people for protesting mandatory hijab majority of us do not have knowledge that mandatory hijab is pretty clearly against religious texts and that neighbour Bill while being Muslim is a good person. We do that with Christianity for example. For example, even Christian fundamentalists do similar you need to act like my religion says thing. A case-and-point example is the overturning of Roe vs Wade in the US. Nor did people start really deciding all Catholics are bad because the church had a huge CSA problem and might still have it.

Fundamentalist religion is a problem as it usually comes with extending religious values outside oneself. How Islam landed on that in many countries is a very complex issue but one thing is that it didn’t happen in a vacuum. Radicalization has a huge component of different types of marginalization. One huge and studied cause is colonialism.

It doesn’t sit well with me how the West is part of the cause for radicalized Islam while the widespread Islamophobia means that Muslims are treated badly no matter of their own actions which is likely to further radicalize Islam.

I realized later that’s what it sounds like. I am not defending the act itself. I have spent a lot of time criticising it myself. What I am trying to do is to frame it into context. Bible is not without its pretty heinous acts. What I have an issue with is that people frame Islam, Christianity and Judaism in completely separate contexts. It is no less insane to convert to Christianity than Islam. Both are problematic and all three are built on each other literally. IMO based on religious texts Islam is better but that doesn’t mean it is without significant faults. There are buts like with Aisha. Otherwise, I would have converted already.

People forget that countries, cultures, religions and people are not as simply understood as Islam bad. That would make my work easier. But religions are a complex mixture of all with a side of history. For example, both Christianity and Judaism also require veiling yourself as a woman but few do. I haven’t really met a Christian who doesn’t wear polycotton. And as few that don’t eat crustaceans. Not even Catholicism nor Orthodoxy require either. But Bible does.

Fundamentalist thought processes have been pretty widespread in Islam for the past half a century. But they are not also explainable with just Islam bad. A lot of it is overcorrection because of imperialism. Some are about the far-right which while Islamophobic carries a lot of commonalities with fundamentalists of all types. And some are about religion. It is a potent mix and is used by a lot of populists globally. While there is a lot to criticize, it is often mischaracterized. Which makes me sound like I am defending the faults. I am not and should have framed better.

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Hijab is not compulsory in majority of the Muslim countries legally to wear hijab. Socially it is in many, many more. But enclaves of choice among this is to purely Western perpgative. Choice is part of decision commonly in places like North Africaq, Jordan and Turkey.

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That is not how the majority of Muslim women who wear hijab of their free will see it. Often it is framed in you hide what is most important to you. For Muslim women who have to wear hijab and do not want to it is seen as a tool of oppression. The difference is choice.

We are past second-wave feminism for the most part. If you can choose what you want to do, it is OK to choose traditionally feminine things. I am not Muslim. But I love kids, cooking and cleaning. It is OK. I can be more than one thing.

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Only one brand of fundamentalist Islam is exported from KSA. There are a lot of brands including ones brought from Iran and Afghanistan not to mention whatever ISIS was doing.

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Especially given this context: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibmsdJ5R0b0