“The machine did it coldly: Israel used AI to identify 37,000 Hamas targets” – that is the title of a Guardian piece on Israel’s use of the “Lavender” AI-assisted targeting system.
The Israeli military’s bombing campaign in Gaza used a previously undisclosed AI-powered database that at one stage identified 37,000 potential targets based on their apparent links to Hamas, according to intelligence sources involved in the war.
In addition to talking about their use of the AI system, called Lavender, the intelligence sources claim that Israeli military officials permitted large numbers of Palestinian civilians to be killed, particularly during the early weeks and months of the conflict.
Their unusually candid testimony provides a rare glimpse into the first-hand experiences of Israeli intelligence officials who have been using machine-learning systems to help identify targets during the six-month war.
Israel’s use of powerful AI systems in its war on Hamas has entered uncharted territory for advanced warfare, raising a host of legal and moral questions, and transforming the relationship between military personnel and machines.
“This is unparalleled, in my memory,” said one intelligence officer who used Lavender, adding that they had more faith in a “statistical mechanism” than a grieving soldier. “Everyone there, including me, lost people on October 7. The machine did it coldly. And that made it easier.”
The article, by Bethan McKernan and Harry Davies, contains several howlers such as a reference to “the shockingly high death toll in the war”. Even if I believed Hamas casualty figures, which I do not, the death toll in this war is shockingly low. The Allied bombing of Dresden probably killed more people over three nights than have died over six months of the current Israeli-Hamas war.
Nonetheless, as the quoted passage shows, the authors have pointed out that one of the benefits to humanity of AI targeting in war is that it takes the immediate decision to kill out of the hands of humans.
And puts it… where exactly? I am all in favour of targeted killing, if the alternative is untargeted killing. I am in favour of the decision to kill being made according to rational military and legal criteria agreed openly in advance, if the alternative is the decision being made in a split second by someone who is angry and afraid. But I share the writers’ disquiet at the idea of the process of war becoming detached from human control entirely.
What is your view?
Once again, i strongly recommend watching the movie, Eye in the Sky, to understand how messy decision-making can be in a xxi-century war room.
NB: I do not take a position on whether the human element should be removed from decision making — except when decisions have to be made quickly; that is to say, more quickly than i can make them.
I don’t recall who made this observation first, probably someone in pre-historic times, but the horrors and excesses of wars are a feature, not a bug. A feature only in that they instill a dread and avoidance of war like no other feature can. Others have put it better I’m sure.
The outcomes at Hiroshima and Nagasaki are why no cities have been nuked since.
And it’s been said of this current Mid East war that Israel’s best option to avoid another such attack is to utterly destroy Hamas. All of them. And their dogs. That’s the only calculus that will register with their enemies, “attack us and we will kill every last one of you.”
But I wonder if some version of that is part of Israel’s strategic plan for the current situation?
Re making quick decisions (Snorri Godhi), perhaps one test of whether a human or a machine makes the decision is “what is the consequence of having a human make the decision and take longer?”
If the answer is “not much, no significant change in casualties or damage to our side”, then maybe you keep the decision with the human. But if the other side is using machines and the result is (predicted to be) they can inflict far greater damage by doing so and our best/only response with current tech/know how is to use machines, then we do that of course.
And those developing these AI “machines” are certainly modeling how they perform in such situations compared to humans, right? So, my question can be answered even if the confidence (uncertainty) in the answer is less than perfect.
Targeted killing….untargeted killing….I stand with General Curtis LeMay: “I’ll tell you what war is about, you’ve got to kill people, and when you’ve killed enough they stop fighting.”
@Vinegar Joe, that is not true at all. It matters a lot who you kill and who you don’t kill. If, for example, some of the earlier attempts to kill Hitler had succeeded, world war two would have turned out very differently. The targeted killing of various terrorist leaders certainly makes a big difference.
However, there is a odd thing about human psychology on this. If, for example, a self driving car gets in an accident and kills someone, we have a great deal more concern than if fifty people drive a car and kill fifty people. We consider mistakes by automated systems dramatically more significant than mistakes by people. Perhaps out of a false sense of control over the person’s mistakes, and a sense of powerlessness over the machine’s mistakes.
One of the challenges with AI is that when an AI draws a conclusion it is not always easy to see why. And so we humans feel disempowered because we can’t follow the reasoning. However, the fact is that machines, generally speaking, do a better job at making dispassionate decisions than humans. We just have to accept that they make mistakes and deal with it. Because there is no “mistake free” way of doing it.
In all such systems we have to tune between false positives and false negatives. Tune to far to the left and you get more mistaken killings, tune too far to the left and you leave dangerous people alive to kill other innocent civilians. You have to choose your poison.
It reminds me of the criminal justice system. Famously we say “let ten guilty men go free lest one innocent be punished.” But why ten? Why not one hundred, or one thousand? The only way to guarantee that no innocent person be punished is to never punish anyone, to shut down the criminal justice system. And in so doing as a second order consequence, crime goes up and many, many innocent people suffer.
After October 7th, I no longer care much about whatever happens to either Hamas or the Gazan Arab population. Having witnessed through what their own proud imagery showed, I’m of the opinion that these are not human beings as I would define the term. They’re scum of the earth, and should be culled from it. My only real objection to the Israeli actions in Gaza is that they’re not moving fast enough or killing enough of the Gazan Arabs. Attempting to treat these creatures as though they were rational human beings is a mistake; that’s well-proven by experience and demonstrated actions on their parts.
You don’t like that? Tough. You protest it, and try to restrain the justly deserved retribution these two-legged monsters of the id have brought upon themselves? You’re only setting the stage for your own abuse, in your own lands. Because, believe me, if they could do what they did on the Israeli side of the border between Gaza and civilization in England, they would. Hell, their sympathizers are already amping themselves up to do unto you as they did to the Jews; you’re deaf, dumb, and blind not to see that. And, what’s even richer? Your politicians and “security” forces are enabling it all, while you watch, doing nothing.
First, the Jew. Then, you.
You’ve had your warnings from history, but you won’t listen. Your children will curse your name, daughters especially. Likely from the slave markets…
They are using AI to select targets and it will do so without any concersn. The key bit though is that list is then looked at and executed by humans. At the moment anyway. There is no need for humans with their biases and fears to select the targets when the AI is set up correctly. The more boxes ticked the higher the target is on the lists. Ideal job for a computer. Pulling the trigger and evaluating the situation at that time is a job for humans.
It’s easy to see why an AI made a decision. They tell you if you ask them.
I’ve heard that 10 innocents before and thought about it hard. IMO it means that if there is doubt on the evidence rather than false +ves. If the boxes are granular enough there shouldn’t be any doubt. If there is doubt then we shouldn’t have them on the kill list. There is the argument that we don’t care if they are innocent or not. Group X has attacked us, we must kill Y amount of them in retaliation for our revenge. In this case though it sounds like the targets are meeting certain criteria. It’s the execution of the killing that leaves a lot to be desired as these people are happy to increase their chances by putting innocents at risk and the IDF are minimising risk to their troops.
Oh, and about “targeting in war”?
As someone who has actually participated in such activities, I’m here to tell you that it isn’t as easy or clean as the movies would make it out to be. Mistakes in identification are all too easy to make, and it’s not outside the realm of possibilities that the mistakes here were because of Hamas activity. It’d be very easy to get inside the Israeli system for something like this; the various informants working for the Israelis are probably at least partially known to Hamas, and the spoofing of Israeli targeting systems would be a very high-value propaganda thing for them. Which the Israelis can’t reveal much about, because that’d tell too much about their systems… As well, it’d be a coup for Hamas to have the Israelis acknowledge they were scammed by Hamas getting into their systems. I wouldn’t doubt but that there were doubled informants that Hamas keeps feeding low-value targets to, in order to keep something like this “in potential”. I know I would, in their shoes. And, the Hamasniks aren’t entirely stupid, nor are their Iranian handlers.
The whole thing smacks of a well-wrought propaganda operation.
One thing that you arseholes criticizing the Israeli Defense Forces ought to make yourselves aware of is their actual record: Of the various armed forces in the world, the IDF is the only one I’m aware of that has actually got some teeth to its rules of engagement and soldier’s code. Google up “Purity of Arms”, examine what all it covers, and recognize that the IDF integrates training on that doctrine into everything it does, even training exercises. As well, go look for the records on who gets prosecuted and what for, in the IDF. There are IDF officers who were brought up on charges, prosecuted, and then found guilty and incarcerated for actions that would likely have drawn, at most, a letter of reprimand in the US Army and British forces. They’re very serious about this sort of thing, and discipline it with draconian measures.
Which ain’t the narrative the international media tries to sell you. I know of an Israeli lieutenant that did prison time for one of his men having what the US Army would have termed a “negligent discharge” while conducting a patrol; he did hard time, because he was deemed to have been cavalier in his duties as an officer and not preventing it. Something like that would be unheard of in any other Western military; I’ve seen American officers and enlisted that killed civilians through similar misadventures who were not even investigated, let alone prosecuted.
No idea what actually happened here, but the lies put out about this event are mind-numbing.
Reading Lord T’s post reminds me of yet another issue: That of behavioral modification.
I think we can all agree that the sort of behavior demonstrated by the animals on the 7th of October were things we want to discourage, no?
Similar to how we wanted to discourage the German animals of the Nazi persuasion from bombing cities and so forth, back in WWII? Same with Japan?
Do you recall the measures we had to take? The indiscriminate killing we had to do, in order to render the lesson clear for those populations?
Do you note that there’s been very little such similar activity on the part of either the Germans or the Japanese in the intervening decades?
Do you also recall that the killings of WWI apparently were not enough, the lesson not being driven home hard enough for the Germans? The example of Germany’s fate not being made clear to Japan, and the rest of the world?
Now, tot up all the lives lost in WWI, to no apparent purpose. Stack those with the lives expended delivering the lesson home in WWII: Was it worth it, being “humane”, in 1918?
We got eighty-plus years of peace from the slaughter of WWII, because we ensured those who started the party learned their lessons. Took killing around 10% of the population, and much of their military-age male demographic before the lesson took.
About all I’m concerned with here is that the Israelis aren’t killing enough of Hamas to deliver the proper lesson to the vicious animals they’re unfortunate enough to have as neighbors. I’d strongly advise that those job lots of Hamasniks be set to brutal manual labor cleaning things up, keeping them humiliated and killing as many of them through overwork as possible. That might result in a lasting peace; letting them lie to themselves and say that they really won, as the Israelis have been wont to do in the past, will only result in more war, more rape, more suffering in the future.
At least a part of what broke the German habit of empire stemmed from what happened to their POWs inside the Soviet Union. They learned, those proud Aryan bastards did, what it was to be treated like the animals they were. Most of the ones I met were thoroughly broken of their pride and desire to dominate.
Sadly, these measures will be deemed monstrous, and I will be condemned for voicing them. But, foolish ones… They are the only ones that work, with creatures like this. Remember the lessons of Alamut, and how the Ismaili remnants of the Assassin’s cult are now pacifists: No other measures work.
I’m really skeptical that the human target selection process really involves that much heavy moral calculus. And such that it does — like a general imperative to limit civilian collateral damage — could probably be trained into an AI (and probably has). As I see it, Hamas and its sponsors/supporters have simply latched on to a trendy, AI-flavored psi-ops approach. When Hamas can articulate the means it has implemented to limit atrocities, it will have a leg to stand on.
… to utterly destroy Hamas. All of them. And their dogs
They won’t have dogs, or statues, or embroidered curtains.
The civilians in the Gaza Salient (and it is a salient – look-at-a-map) should have been evacuated to other Islamic areas (countries) many years ago – that has always been the way to prevent civilian deaths and suffering. “There are two million civilians in the salient” – not in 1967 there were not, and there are more than a BILLION Muslims – they control lands from the Atlantic to the Pacific, Israel is a postage stamp compared to the amount of land Islam controls – and with demographic change (babies being born) and conversions, Islam will control more lands – especially as the “mainstream” Christian and atheist movements in the West are not really competing with Islam (indeed they believe competing with Islam is wrong) – Islam can NOT be honestly blamed for the death wish of the West.
The fact that that other Islamic countries, the countries who drove out Jews long ago (most Israeli Jews are from other Middle Eastern countries – they are NOT from Europe) says volumes – about those other Islamic countries who refuse to treat their fellow Muslims as equal citizens, even if they were BORN and raised in those countries.
As for AI – it is not really relevant, whether Israel kills civilians or not it will be accused of doing so – and civilians will be kept in Islamic military locations, so-that-they-are-killed. Hamas and other Islamic groups do not believe they are being cruel by keeping civilians in military locations – remember they believe that Muslims killed by infidels go to paradise – they would, for example, have no problem at all in chaining their own wives and children to trucks and so on, or using them as cover, taking cover behind them, as they went into battle – remember if the infidel Jews (or infidel Christians or infidel atheists – anywhere-in-the-world) kill them, then the women and children go to paradise. Their logic can not be faulted – if one accepts their starting principles.
AI is not really relevant – the way to end the deaths and suffering of civilians is for the civilians not to be in the battle-space, in this case the Gaza Salient (and it is a salient – look-at-a-map).
As for the American government – they do not want Islamic civilians to be killed, but they do not want them to leave the battle-space either.
The American government and the rest of the “international community” really want Israel to LOSE.
Get that through your heads – a demand that Islamic civilians not die and not suffer and yet, at the same time, remain-in-the-battle-space, is a demand that Israel LOSE – and be wiped out, that seven million (rather than six million) Jews be exterminated.
Again – AI is not the answer, because it does not grasp this.
The American government, and the West generally, is NOT a friend of Israel – and the sooner Jews grasp that, the better.
By the way – unlike Judaism, Islam has no “primitive” attachment to a particular piece of land.
Yes they believe that Tel Aviv should be under Islam – but they also believe that London or Chicago should be under Islam – as Allah (according to Islam) created the world, and created all human beings, Islam is perfectly logical in its conclusions.
Other Islamic groups, such as Islamic Jihad, hold to the same basic theology and politics (there is no real distinction between theology and politics in Islam) as Hamas – this is because these ideas were worked out many centuries ago and can-not-be-changed. What, for example, Pope Francis (in his Hegelian way) would call “rigidity” in theology (which mainstream Christian figures have long rejected – as the Bible, as they openly say, is made up of books written by many different people, with different opinions over centuries – even the Gospels give slightly different accounts) is NOT a weakness of Islam – it is its great strength.
So if everyone in Hamas vanished right now (this instant) it would make little difference to the world situation.
I suspect that many people, including many Jews, do not grasp this. They refuse to accord Islam the basic respect of taking its principles seriously – they hold that “Muslims can not possibly believe” what they, including many highly intelligent and learned Muslims, have believed for 14 centuries.
Such non-Muslims cling to a false picture of the situation (about “extremists” who have “distorted” or “perverted” something or other) that reminds me of the speeches of George W. Bush and “Tony” Blair – or Mr Putin the other day explaining away the latest massacre of Russian Christians
In many ways Mr Putin clings to the same false assumptions as his Western enemies.
There’s a big flaw in the argument in considering “citizens” and “Hamas” as two distinct group. The citizens in Gaza *ARE* Hamas. They elected them, they support them, they believe in the programme of extermination of Jews and the elimination of Israel. They ARE Hamas.
Relevant link: https://elderofziyon.blogspot.com/2024/04/whats-truth-behind-israels-use-of-ai-to.html
Re ‘Dresden’. Saw a series on Netflix which made the point that the Bombing wasn’t really bad, but the Nazis claimed it was bigger that it really was. Gosh. Nazis lying. Who’d have imagined it?
Since I am in favor of the Israelis leaving Gaza unimproved (by which I mean no roads, no buildings, no infrastructure of any kind) and also think they would be wholly within their rights to indiscriminately bomb the entire area from 40000 feet, I don’t really care how they select their targets.
They could use darts and a map, or AI, or some kind of spinning barrel full of ping pong balls with coordinates written on them. Fine by me.
Frankly, as long as Hamas holds hostages, and as long as Hamas enjoys popular support among the Gazans, I wouldn’t care if Israel used some of the nukes they “don’t” have. Play with the bull, get the horns.
@jgh
The citizens in Gaza *ARE* Hamas. They elected them, they support them, they believe in the programme of extermination of Jews and the elimination of Israel. They ARE Hamas.
That’s not true. I live in the USA and I assure you I do not at all advocate and I am not at all responsible for the chaos, graft and immorality of that government. The government of Gaza was elected in 2006, and the average age there is in the 20s, so most of the people in Gaza did NOT vote for Hamas because they were not of voting age in 2006, in fact most of them weren’t even born the last time there was an election there.
I think there is a great deal of brainwashing going on in Gaza, so I doubt there is much love for Israel, but to paint the whole population with the brush of “terrorist worthy of death” is just factually inaccurate. In my mind the large majority of the population are more like captives suffering from stockholm syndrome, cannon fodder for the radical Islamic, anti semitic cause. I have a great deal of sympathy for the Palestinian people, many of whom are caught in the crossfire. They are mostly just desperate, poor, powerless people, tossed on the bonfire of other people’s political agendas. Though the blame for that is almost entirely on Hamas rather than the IDF.
@Nicholas (Unlicensed Joker) Gray
Re ‘Dresden’. Saw a series on Netflix which made the point that the Bombing wasn’t really bad, but the Nazis claimed it was bigger that it really was. Gosh. Nazis lying. Who’d have imagined it?
You can’t be serious? The generally accepted number is 25,000 people killed in three nights plus the utter destruction of the 6 square miles of city by bombing and fire, so who knows how many died in the aftermath. For sure the Nazis exaggerated that to 200,000 for propaganda purposes. But it was still a devastatingly destructive and lethal action. I’m not at all claiming, as some have, that it was a war crime. Terrible things happen in war and it isn’t for me to judge this retrospectively. For sure Dresden was very much involved in the ongoing war effort. However, even if justified no serious person can say “It wasn’t really bad.”
War is sometimes necessary, but we mustn’t forget how utterly horrendous it actually is. One death is a tragedy, a million a statistic as the Stalin quote goes. Every one of that million had a half dozen people who loved them and mourned them the rest of their lives. The amazing skill, knowledge and capacity of that million people’s lives were snuffed out. If we don’t remember the reality of war we will be deluded by our politicians to jump into every conflict, throwing away the best and brightest of our children to advance political causes.
War is sometimes necessary, but the USA and the West hasn’t fought a war worth fighting for maybe thirty or forty years. Why? Because we forget quite how horrifying war really is.
Greg (and others with similar posts):
the horrors and excesses of wars…. instill a dread and avoidance of war like no other feature can.
————————————
Or should…
The Islamic world is ever in open, continuous warfare with The Rest of Us.
That was manageable – ignorable, even, except for periodic attempts at conquest – until we started drilling for oil.
There is no way to instill dread of war in a culture that lionizes martyrdom (and brutalizes women and children).
My left-leaning, bleeding-heart Israeli friends are learning quickly that there is no alternative to elimination of Hamas – and taking back the territory ceded to them.
This is something many have missed – the real deterrent for the mullahs is the permanent liberation of territory that was formerly dar-al-Islam.
Frasor Orr – you seem not to see that Islam is a large scale and clear set of beliefs that has existed for 14 centuries. The vast majority of people who live in the Gaza Salient (and it is a salient – look at a map) wish for the Jewish state to be exterminated – they do not need to be “brainwashed” to believe this. Any more than followers of Islam generally (whether in London or Chicago) have to be brainwashed into believing that Allah created the world, and the people of the world, so, therefore, Islam should rule the world – their belief is perfectly logical if one starts from their founding principles.
Such places as Corsica and Sardinia (and on-and-on) suffered Islamic attacks for more than a thousand years (between the 7th century and the 19th century) – but they never said their enemies were “radicals” or “brainwashed” – they were just Islamic people following their belief system.
A belief system supported by many highly intelligent and learned Muslims. When American representatives in the early 19th century asked why Islamic powers plundered and enslaved, it was explained to them (with reference to the Medina verses of the Koran, and by reference to Hadiths of a high grade of reliability) that if infidels did not pay the tax, and/or acted in an arrogant way (acted as if they thought themselves the equals of Muslims) it was the DUTY of Muslims to attack them – till all the world created by Allah was controlled by His servants, and the infidels acted in a way that showed that they felt themselves subdued. Sadly President George W. Bush and Prime Minister “Tony” Blair knew no history (although Mr Bush had a history degree from Yale) and had no real understanding of Islamic thought – but that is not the fault of the Islamic sources, which are there if infidels can be bothered to study them.
As for the refusal of other Muslim nations to accept Muslims from the Gaza Salient or the “West Bank” (much of which is closer to the sea than the Jordan River – at the narrow point the “West Bank” almost cuts Israel in two) and treat them as equal citizens, sadly this is very much par-for-the-course.
The Jews driven out of Muslim controlled lands long ago were accepted as equal citizens of Israel – these Middle Eastern Jews now make up the majority of Israeli Jews, BUT the Muslims who left the area in 1948 (called upon to leave by the invading Islamic armies – “so we can be sure we are only killing Jews”) are still treated as “refugees”, not equal citizens, in Muslim ruled lands and so are their children, and grandchildren (born and raised in Muslim ruled lands – just as Chairman Arafat was born and raised in Egypt) treated as “refugees” – and the (accursed) “United Nations” funds them as “refugees”.
This is the scandal. This is why people, on all sides, keep getting killed.
Were you to develop a truly rational and realistic AI, I’m afraid that it would conclude two things in short order: One, that you cannot treat with Islam, at all. The track record for such stupidity is full of examples. Two, that the only solution for dealing with the Gazan Arab issue would be to eliminate all Gazan Arabs, one way or another. I suspect it would conclude that an effective genocide was the path of least resistance and probable success, but it might also suggest eradicating Islam as a religion in that population.
I don’t think people really comprehend just how an unemotional AI might think, absent human hormonal and emotional influences. Said AI would examine the history, note that there is an extensive history of perfidy in the Islamic tradition, it being the only faith advocating for lying in its furtherance, and then the AI would conclude that there’s no point to negotiating with the fundamentally irrational. Then, well… Yeah.
The only reason Islam exists as a religion these days is down to the essential stupidity of our leadership. Anyone that thought allowing them out of their home regions was a good idea should have been taken out and shot without even bothering with a trial; their policies of importation of these primitive savages like the Somalis was prima facie evidence for summary execution as national-scale traitors. Same with the heads of all these “charitable institutions” that took money to resettle the alien barbarians in our midst. Every dime they took ought to be recovered and put to use shipping them back to the ghetto hellholes they created for themselves back where they came from.
Do you know why Somalia looks the way it does? Somalians. Same with all the rest of the regions the Islamics took over and turned into deserts. Ever wonder what happened to the Fertile Crescent, the cradle of civilization? Islam did. They took over and when their policies and practices wrecked it all, they never bothered to rebuild. Because, in the end? They can’t create or repair that which they destroy. Everything credited to them as examples of their “civilization” were things that they either took over or outright stole. Where’s the high culture of Islam, these days? Oh, that’s right… There isn’t any. Why? Because they exterminated the actual creators of those works, and drove the rest into exile.
Ah, well… You’ll learn. When Notre Dame and the rest of Europe’s cathedrals are converted over into mosques, and your children are abused and enslaved by their Muslim masters. Fools, all.
I don’t have a lot of respect for anyone telling me of the wonders of Islam. An honest appraisal would include all the wrack and ruin that faith has brought, and pay particular attention to what it robbed from others, and took the credit for.
@Ben David
First of all, I want to say, as I said above, there is certainly a time for war, and certainly a justification for it, and if October 7th isn’t one, I don’t know what is. So my best wishes and support are with the IDF and the people of Israel, and TBH, Jews all around the world, because it seems to be impactful on all of them to a greater or lesser extent.
And FWIW, the cynical electioneering by Biden in his dealings with Israel makes me ashamed to be an American.
There is no way to instill dread of war in a culture that lionizes martyrdom (and brutalizes women and children).
I’m not sure that is entirely true. Certainly there are some people who are beyond the pale, but they are a small part of any population. How small varies, and for sure many of the more radicalized Islamic populations have a disturbingly high percentage.
However, I know many Muslims in America and Britain, people who are passionate about their faith, and they love their babies and don’t want them to die. So the love of martyrdom is brought about by more than just Islam. When poverty and despair are all you have it is a lot easier to become radicalized. The promise of heaven seems rather brighter when you are already living in hell.
And, of course, what their religion teaches is horrifying. But what the Jewish or Christian religion teach are petty horrifying too. Most people don’t take their religion too seriously, thank god. However, when people are poor, brutalized, powerless and full of despair, religion is often their last refuge and only hope.
Fraser Orr said:
Mmmmm… What about it all, when the “hell” you live in is entirely self-created? What then?
Gaza could have been a wealthy enclave, like Singapore. That it is what it is would be entirely down to the choices made by its residents. Do you remember the greenhouses the Israelis left behind, when they turned Gaza over to the Gazans? Do you think that all that concrete they’re finding diverted into building tunnel complexes and fortifications came from the concrete fairies of the Middle East, or do you suppose the Israelis let that in as “humanitarian aid”?
You excuse the wanton viciousness of the Gazan Arab, saying that they live in hell. A hell they created for themselves; there were no Israelis involved in that, at all. And, if you note, the Egyptian border is at least as well-fortified against these animals getting out as the Israeli one was, maybe even better.
Let’s be brutally honest: Gazan Arabs are self-demonstrating that they are what they are, and that is a human cancer. October 7 showed the world exactly what they are, how they behave, what they’d do if they were given free rein. They’d be doing that in your hometown, to you and yours, if they could. Why? Because that’s who they are, and because you’re not them.
If you have any pity, any sympathy for these creatures, you’re a credulous fool. Gaza is exactly what it is because of Gazans, nothing else. All that wealth that the world poured in? That’s more goddamn money than anyone ever invested in either Singapore or Israel after WWII. Wonder why those states aren’t “hellholes”? Simple answer? THEY AREN’T POPULATED BY GAZAN ARABS.
Sweet babbling baby Jesus… Even the Kuwaitis saw the light after what their “Arab brothers” did when the Iraqis came in. Wonder why they’re no longer welcome there? You might ask; the answers would enlighten you.
Fraser Orr –
1. it is natural to fill in the blanks from one’s own experience… but the “they are just like us/all cultures are equal” stuff promoted by liberals/progressives has been overtaken by events, and torn to pieces.
An entire generation of Westerners has been raised on platitudes like this, and consider it a deep sin to make such comparisons – or even to judge certain groups by their actual words and deeds. Once this self-definition is ingrained is it hard to unlearn. And in a climate of cancel culture, hard to challenge.
While I don’t think you are consulting a left-wing crib sheet of Sacred Victim Groups to interpret the mid-East conflict – you do seem like the bien-pensants who make a show of “understanding” the thug who mugs/rapes/steals their fancy bicycle/breaks into their fashionable loft apartment. In those cases there’s a lot of hand-waving, rescripting (which is deeply patronizing of those being “championed”), and willful blindness to obvious observed events.
As well, there is a lot of romanticizing the poor, and excusing the brutishness and immorality that have caused their own poverty. Which eventually leads to blaming those who have done better for themselves – largely through self-discipline.
2. Yes – Islam is different from Judaism and Christianity. It does not have the same values or goals as the Judeo-Christian West. It talks about conquering and subduing all other cultures – and has consistently acted on those teachings throughout history.
*We* did not do anything to deserve this – despite decades of not-so-subtle training your White Guilt Reflex may have received from Left-leaning academia and media…
Nor need we apologize for our better, more constructive values.
You need to see this clearly beyond the mid-East conflict. Europe and some states in the US can already be defined as active battlegrounds in the perpetual Islamic war of conquest.
The Gazans spilling out on the street waving flags and ululating with joy when non-Muslims are killed by their Holy Jihadists are a prominent feature on television – both ours and theirs. I’m not sure how much of that is the television journalists, but it really doesn’t look like those ululators had to be bribed to do it. Killing Jews seems extremely popular in Gaza.
Unfortunately, this seems to be getting popular world-wide. We should discourage it wherever and whenever we can.
@Ben David
you do seem like the bien-pensants who make a show of “understanding” the thug who mugs/rapes/steals their fancy bicycle/breaks into their fashionable loft apartment.
You mean like when I said you should kill all the terrorists and eliminate Hamas?
As well, there is a lot of romanticizing the poor, and excusing the brutishness and immorality that have caused their own poverty.
There is nothing romantic about being poor. And Hamas caused their poverty by stealing all the resources to build their tunnels and weapons. Famously the Israelis installed a sewer system to help the people there and Hamas ripped it up for rockets. That is the fault of Hamas, not the people who could have very much used a decent sanitary system.
2. Yes – Islam is different from Judaism and Christianity. It does not have the same values or goals as the Judeo-Christian West.
Judaism and Christianity are full of horrifying things. It is just that Jews and Christians don’t actually practice them. When was the last time you stoned a woman for being found unchaste on her wedding night? When was the last time you took the Israeli army and killed off an entire tribe like the Amalekites, making sure to kill the babies? Of course you didn’t because you are obviously a decent person, and Israel is a decent country that follows the standards of decency we’d expect from them. But that isn’t what their religion says. As I am sure you know I am referring to some specific passages in the Tannach (or if you are Christian, the Bible).
The quran has some equally horrifying things, maybe even more horrifying things. The difference is, in the middle east they practice these parts of their religion. Here in the West, I know lots of muslims who would no more kill a jew than I would, even if they have strong political differences with the State of Israel.
Which is exactly what I said — religion is only a problem when people take it seriously.
*We* did not do anything to deserve this – despite decades of not-so-subtle training your White Guilt Reflex may have received from Left-leaning academia and media…
I think you are projecting your ideas of what you justifiably think of other crazy liberals onto me. At no time have I ever suggested or even hinted that I thought Israel deserved Oct 7th. On the contrary, it was a horrific, unjustified abomination. The thought of those hostages keeps me up at night. However, there are victims of Hamas in Gaza too. The fact that that is true does not diminish one iota the unrestrained evil perpetrated on the peoples of those kibbutzim.
@Ellen
Unfortunately, this seems to be getting popular world-wide. We should discourage it wherever and whenever we can.
Sure, we certainly should.
I note that the Israeli intelligence officer quoted about AI above made the point that people who’d suffered the effects of October 7 felt devolving decision-making (or part of it) to AI would avoid angry, traumatised people making decisions. This is remarkably fair-minded, to remove oneself from decision-making in case you were too opposed to the enemy. Can you imagine it the other way round?
Plus. What Kirk said, x 100.
A poll released today shows only a quarter of British Muslims (you know, our moderate compatriots who love their children too) believe Oct 7th took place. They may not have descended to th same level as the Gazan sociopaths but they are utterly blinded by the race hatred enshrined in their religion.
Marius,
I saw an article about that poll in the Telegraph this morning and am planning to do a post about it.
Frasor Orr “poverty and despair”.
Pull the other one Sir – it has got bells on.
Billions of Dollars have been thrown at Gaza.
You might as well blame 9/11 on “poverty and despair” – none of the 9/11 attackers was from a poor family.
Or more than a thousand years of Islamic attacks on Sardinia and Corsica (and many other places) on “poverty and despair”.
Is the Chief Minister of Scotland motivated by “poverty and despair” in his struggle to crush all liberty in Scotland?
This economic determinism is absurd (why not add “exploited and oppressed” as well – the full Marxist tap dance). Islam teaches what it teaches – it is not about “poverty and despair”.
When Yasser Arafat (the founder of today’s “moderate” rival to Hamas) first started fighting in the 1940s it was not about “poverty and despair” – nor was it about protecting his homeland, as he was born and raised in Egypt.
By the way, the “moderate” “Palestinian Authority” teaches much the same system of belief in its schools as Hamas teaches in its schools – or is taught to young Muslims in Britain or the United States or anywhere else. How could it teach something fundamentally different? Islam is what it is.
The Islamic people elected to the American House of Representatives openly state that their loyalty is to Islam – and so do the people who elected them (who the Americans allowed into their country – natural increase then followed, they had babies – naturally enough, who follow this belief system) – Islam is often accused of deception, but in this case the Muslims have not lied – it is the Westerners who are guilty of deception, SELF deception. It is much the same in other countries – it is the Westerners who are guilty of deception, SELF deception.
Westerners up to the time of Gladstone and Winston Churchill understood – but then Westerners stopped understanding. Are Muslims to blame for this modern lack of understanding? NO Muslims are NOT to blame – the Westerners made themselves ignorant and choose to PUNISH anyone who reminded of what they had once understood.
Fraser Orr.
What is the penalty for a man who leaves Islam?
And.
What is the penalty for a man who mocks Muhammed?
This penalty has nothing to do with “poverty and despair” or “loving babies”.
As for a Muslim version of someone like Pope Francis who believed that doctrine could be transformed by some Hegelian (or other) process – Muhammed himself laid down the penalty for someone like that.
Muhammed was not a Jesus type figure – and did not teach Jesus style doctrines. Muhammed was a political and military leader, one of genius, the system he proclaimed, which he stated came from God, – is clearly described, and can not be changed, and was designed to be effective in advancing by all necessary means.
As for those Modernists who proclaim “rigidity” a weakness in a religion – it is not a weakness, on the contrary it is a strength, a vital one.
Changing basic doctrines is not “adapting in order to survive and flourish” – changing basic doctrines is suicide for a religion, or for any other world-view.
@Paul Marks
What is the penalty for a man who leaves Islam?
In Judaism and Christianity what is the penalty for a woman found not a virgin on her wedding night? Let me tell you, it is in Deuteronomy (HaDevarim) 22:20-21:
We don’t do that in the west because we don’t take our religion books too seriously, thank god. Poverty, despair and hopelessness often leaves religion, and religious fanaticism as a last option.
I should have thought that a predictable consequences of involving AI in military decisions is that “hold your fire !” will be heard less frequently.
My recollection from various WW2 stuff was that lots of soldiers were remarkably reluctant to fire their weapons at the other side’s soldiers. They fired to keep the Sergeant happy, but they fired to miss. A high proportion of the killing was done by the minority who had no such psychological blockages. Hence all the drill to try to get a soldier to perform as an automaton.
Maybe it’s different now with volunteer armies and high tech weapons, but I’m still guessing that the more often it’s a machine deciding whether to fire something into soft human flesh, and the less often a human has to decide that, the more firing there will be.
I’ve also read that claim in various books, not at all convinced it is true, studies not withstanding.
I’ve only personally experienced one active war close enough to smell it (Croatia & Bosnia-Herzegovina), and that was a peer war in Europe, not a modern colonial police action in some third world shithole. The young guys I knew were perfectly willing to shoot to kill, I knew a (former florist) sniper who dutifully logged each kill in a notebook, and he was a pretty well adjusted fellow (still is). If the HV/HVO chaps I knew were not aiming, it wasn’t due to qualms, it was due to the disincentivising effects of incoming fire.
Lee Moore said:
I swear to God, if I have to refute this idiocy one more time, I’m likely to go up in a flame of self-induced pyrolysis.
This claim about “reluctant” firers goes back to one specific idiot by the name of S.L.A. Marshall, whose self-promoted reknown spread from the post-WWII era into Vietnam. He liked to claim this bullshit about “only 15% do the killing”, but he had precisely zero data to back this assertion up. He claimed he had self-reported survey results from WWII and Korea, which mysteriously could not be replicated when Vietnam rolled around. Reality? Nobody participating in his post-combat debriefs during WWII can be found who will testify as to any such things being asked or reported by participants.
The reality of combat is this: Every soldier is a member of a team, and under close supervision. It may be true that success in combat weighs upon the shoulders of 15% of the men in a given engagement, but the reality is that those are rarely the same 15% from engagement to engagement; sheer randomness puts you out of position to engage the enemy, or right where the action is. And, if you’re going to survive, no matter how you feel about killing, you do what is necessary. If you think that somehow the same 15% of the unit is going to carry the load in every action? LOL… Yeah, right: After about the third time that happened, and those 15% “super killers” recognized that the other 85% were shirking and hanging back, while they were taking all the risk? Do I really need to point out the realities of that situation, and what the likely reaction would be? Do you think these “super killers” would tolerate that sort of threat to their own survival?
As well, where the hell do you think the junior leadership is, and what their job is? After every single engagement, you check everyone’s ammo, redistribute and resupply, and believe me… You’d know who shirked, because they’d be carrying their ammo still unfired, and their weapons would be clean. Hiding the fact that you were shirking your duty and risking your teammates under fire ain’t exactly all that easy.
And, then there’s the fact that men under fire don’t behave the way you would like to fantasize, nobly restraining themselves from killing the enemy. More likely? They’re out there firing their asses off at anything even resembling an enemy, because they want to live, and killing them before they kill you is the best way to do it.
I don’t doubt but that a lot of people report that they didn’t fire, after the fact. If you actually believe those self-reported noble refusals to kill other people, well… I’ve got a bridge in Baltimore Harbor I’d like to sell you the toll rights to…
Marshall’s bullshit was enshrined in the literature and training for decades; got some of that myself, and even made the mistake of repeating his bullshit to actual WWII combat veterans. You can probably imagine the results of that…
Supposedly, he was responsible for the US Army’s move to something called TrainFire, where they changed over from the old bullseye targets on fixed-distance ranges to pop-up torso-like targets exposed randomly for set periods of time. The actual truth is that you can go through all the supporting documentation for the development of TrainFire as a concept and system, and you will not find one damn word supporting Marshall’s fraudulent assertions. At least, I couldn’t. Evidence might be out there, but I doubt it.
What made the difference between WWII, Korea, and Vietnam was TrainFire. They figured out that the way they’d done training before that came in with the random torso targets appearing was that it conditioned the soldiers to only shooting when they had perfectly identifiable targets like those bullseye ones on the known distance ranges. They had (do note use of the term here, and where else I’ve applied it of late) gamified the training simulation on those ranges until it lost all fidelity with reality as the soldiers would experience it in combat. Thus, without big, round targets and a big black center, they didn’t fire until they had their perfect sight picture. Just like in training.
TrainFire totally changed the game to better match reality, and it showed in Vietnam. It wasn’t that there was some fantasy “reluctance to kill”, it was that they were doing the training far more realistically, and the soldiers were thus conditioned to actually take those shots, rather than waiting for the ideal bullseye target to appear.
Marshall was a fraud, as is his most current acolyte, Grossman. There is no such thing as an inborn “reluctance to kill”; the only reality is that you have either feral humanity that never acquired the conditioning not to kill, or you have men whose conditioning you have to overcome. And, from my experience, it ain’t all that hard to overcome, once the realization comes clear to you that there are other people over there trying their best to kill you…
Please lay this imaginary and purely fantastic belief in your fellow man aside. It’s not real; it’s an artifact of wishful thinking, and has never, ever been true. Put to the tests of exigency, even your most saintly types will kill like stoats on a henhouse spree. And, in conditions that would appall anyone fantasizing about man’s higher nature. We ain’t got one; we love killing, and God help anyone thinking otherwise. There is very little in life more pleasurable than driving one’s enemies down to destruction as they flee the scene of battle.
If that weren’t the actual truth and reality of it, you’d see very little family dissension over Monopoly games gone bad, nor would you see sports enthusiasts rioting like mad things in the night…
Frasor Orr – thank you for trying to dodge my questions by changing the subject.
You have shown that you are a dishonest man Sir.
As for you repeated claim that it is “poverty and despair” that makes people take Islam seriously, you claim is false Sir.
“we don’t take our religion books too seriously” – I was wrong to assume that just meant Islam, a second reading makes it clear that Fraser Orr meant all the works of any religion.
What incredible arrogance, and what extreme ignorance – ignoring (disregarding) the works of commentary on scripture whether of Thomas Aquinas, or the Talmudic scholars (on the specific passage of the Torah that he cites), or anyone else.
I am reminded of the economic determinism of Barack Obama, sneering at people in Pennsylvania (of all places) for “clinging to their guns and religion” out of poverty-and-despair.
Terrible – an utterly terrible level of analysis.
As for Islam – it is clear.
During the war to eliminate the Jews of Arabia (who had been there for centuries before Muhammed) followers of Islam called out “raise your hand” – this was not a call to surrender, it was a sneering reference to the Jewish custom of placing one’s hand, when reading parts of the Torah that could have a violent interpretation if someone had not been educated in the Talmud. The hand was placed over the passage so that it would not be read aloud (by accident) if in a place where people not educated in the Talmud might hear it – and act upon it (not really understanding it).
Muhammed and his followers totally rejected that approach – they maintained that there was no need to do that with their verses (which were formally recited – before they were written down) – as such things as the death penalty for XYZ were to be carried out. This remains the founding principle of Islamic jurisprudence – there are indeed differences between the various schools of Islamic legal thought, but not over this founding principle.
To treat Islamic scripture as if it is not to be enforced-as-written is absurd – it shows that someone does not understand the first thing about Islam.
And this is nothing to do with “poverty and despair” or lack of education and intelligence. A scholar may be very wealthy, and of the highest level of both intelligence and education.
It is ironic that I am far more likely to be punished for “Islamophobia” than Fraser Orr is.
Ironic – because I respect Islam, and Fraser Orr clearly has no respect for Islam – or for any other belief system.
@Paul Marks
What incredible arrogance, and what extreme ignorance – ignoring (disregarding) the works of commentary on scripture whether of Thomas Aquinas, or the Talmudic scholars (on the specific passage of the Torah that he cites), or anyone else.
I wasn’t talking about a thousand years ago, I was talking about today. For sure during the dark ages and medieval times they did take their religious books seriously. They did kill homosexuals, burn witches, and kill women for promiscuous and adulterous behavior. They did subject women to the violent domination of their husbands and recognize that “slaves should obey their masters”. They did execute people for blasphemy. They did persecute people for not being Christian. There is a lot of talk of Dhimmis here. Don’t you think the treatment of Jews in Medieval Christian societies strongly resembles the Islamic treatment of non Muslims. I do.
Thankfully, today we ignore those sorts of commands in the Bible. We have evolved a new and better morality for our societies. A lot of modern Christian commentary is about explaining away these embarrassing passages. So perhaps “ignore our religious books” is too strong. I’d say it is more accurate to say “edit out the embarrassing and difficult parts.” Or “focusing on the parts that agree with secular morality”.
FWIW, it is why I think the Church of England is the best Christian church. It has all the niceties of religion — helping out the weak, being nice to each other, enjoying beautiful buildings and lovely music, without getting too much of that bronze age, pre scientific tribal morality mixed in there.
Fraser Orr said:
You’re not describing a church here; that’s a social club with nice buildings.
You also ignore the fact that the Church of England is dying everywhere that it meets your description.
This is from 2015. Here in 2024, the trends are, if anything, even more dire:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/11340590/Church-of-England-cannot-carry-on-as-it-is-unless-decline-urgently-reversed-Welby-and-Sentamu.html
Doesn’t appear that your social club is too successful, does it?
Ah, well… All those nice buildings will make wonderful mosques.
New, maybe. Better? Far from it.
As for the church: the medieval church, whatever it’s faults, was, in either Catholic or Orthodox guides, one of the finest institutions ever. The current Anglican church just sadly seems to exist today to justify letting foxes (Muslims, Communists, woke, etc) into the chicken coop.
@Martin
New, maybe. Better? Far from it.
Are you seriously arguing that the morality today in western countries is worse than it was in medieval times? When slavery was common place, serfdom even more commonplace, women had few if any rights, people were legally killed by the state for homosexuality or witchcraft and a thousand other abominations, is somehow better than the one we have today where all of these things have gone? I’m not at all arguing that society’s moral values today are perfect, and if you want to make the case that they have gone downhill the past 20 years I’d be open to hearing your argument. But to make the argument that the medieval and dark ages were morally superior… I mean I’m a little at a loss for words.
As for the church: the medieval church, whatever it’s faults, was, in either Catholic or Orthodox guides, one of the finest institutions ever. The current Anglican church just sadly seems to exist today to justify letting foxes (Muslims, Communists, woke, etc) into the chicken coop.
I’ll confess I don’t know much about the Orthodox church, and my history of Eastern Europe in general isn’t strong, but I do know about the Catholic Church of the Medieval ages and I can’t imagine why you think it was a fine institution. It was overflowing with corruption, simony, murder, fraud, blackmail and on and on. Are you familiar with some of the actions of the Medieval Popes? Or the atrocities of the Crusades? Or the brutality of the various Inquisitions, especially the Spanish Inquisition? Or the sale of indulgences? And that is just at the organizational level. If you get down to the local level it was just incompetence mixed with brutality and corruption.
Sure, they funded beautiful buildings and great art and music. But you know those buildings were funded in part by theft and the horrendous practice of the sale of indulgences. And you know that that beautiful music was often sung by young boys who were castrated so that their voices sounded pretty?
Anglicans are generally speaking, nice, well meaning people who aren’t too religious. They tend to be your standard leftie liberals, so I’m no great fan, but at least they don’t burn witches at the stake, or object too vehemently if you want to go to the pub on a Sunday.
No wonder, your understanding of medieval history is even worse than that of a standard left-liberal. You sound like a pound shop Richard Dawkins.
@Martin, It is a shame you don’t make a substantive argument here. I think it would be an interesting discussion. But if you are bailing with invective I guess we can call it a wrap here.
I kind of stopped reading what you wrote seriously as soon as you mentioned witch killings, because the vast majority of these instances happened after the Middle Ages are deemed by most scholars to have ended. Just seemed you were more interested in regurgitating old renaissance/philosophe myths.