Isn't Islam inherently violent? What stopped the Islamic world having an Enlightenment? Why are some Muslims so into head-chopping? And isn't Hamas the same as Islamic State?
2 years ago I told you that Israel was responsible for funding Hamas. Now in 2026, we have verbal confirmation from Netanyahu himself, that that was true.
This has to be one of @Jonathan_K_Cook best and timely articles. The explanation of the I'd suggest, deliberate misconceptions of Islam vs 'The West' are excellently put. Thank you @Jonathan_K_Cook 👍
This essay performs a specific logical sleight of hand worth naming. Having established that Hamas is not ISIS, it implies Hamas is therefore a legitimate political actor whose criminalisation is unjust. But non-identity with the worst available example establishes nothing. The category — Islamism is diverse, some peaceful, some violent — does the work that the evidence was supposed to do. Hamas is never actually placed within it.
The Islamism/Zionism analogy works only at the level of abstraction where all differences disappear. Zionism produced a state with UN membership, courts that convicted its own prime minister and president, and formal treaty obligations. Arab Israeli Supreme Court justices sent both to prison. Islamism produced Iran, the Taliban, and Hamas, three movements with mutually contradictory programmes and no shared institutional form. The comparison selects the altitude at which they look the same and refuses to descend.
What the essay doesn't mention: the 1988 charter's theological call for the killing of Jews. The rooftop executions of Fatah members in 2007, documented by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch. The PA's refusal to hold elections for twenty years because its own leadership knows what Hamas would do with a West Bank mandate. October 7.
Thankyou....it's a very detailed and informative post... I'm not an historian but I think another factor in the European enlightenment was the 8 million dead in the 17c 'genocidal' religious wars (30 years war) mostly in Germany, Europe, nearly half of some populations wiped out, which weakened the bond of Church and State, exhausted the faithful and put intellectuals off religion altogether. It likely fed the conditions for later enlightenment thinking ... Kant's philosophy, especially Perpetual Peace (1795), can be interpreted as a direct response to the "pathological" chaos of European warfare.....The abode of Islam, abode of peace, had conflicts but no comparable religious wars to my knowledge. Perhaps the more recent conflicts across the Shia Sunni divide , worsened by colonialism, but also from Islamism, are already changing thinking on politics in the Islamic world ?
Unfortunately no war is sterile. War is ugly. But sometimes there is no choice. Israel is fighting for its survival and has caused the lowest percentage of deaths amongst non combatants in any war in recent history. However, when a terrorist army operates within a civilian network and uses the civilians as human shields there will always be civilian deaths too. What would you have Israel do? Any logical, workable suggestions come to mind? I don't know where you live but imagine living in a place where your neighbours are constantly trying to kill you in every way possible and this has been going on for decades. Would you turn the other cheek? I don't think so. When you ask an Israeli what he dreams of he will say peace. When you ask Hamas or Hezbollah they will tell you their dream is to destroy Israel. They state it plainly and do not try to hide it. Why is that so difficult for all the Israel haters to understand?
The clarity of this article was just exemplary, and although I probably knew and understood the rest of it, the section on enlightenment was new to me. I was painfully ignorant about the printing press slowing Arabic progress. Thank you..
Mi6, CIA and Mossad created and / or supported the most radical jihadist groups, such as the Taliban, Hamas, Al Qaeda and ISIS. The atrocities committed by these Sunni Muslim groups were used to demonise Shia Muslims, who only fight to defend their territories against Zionist and Saudi colonialism.
I really don't know where to start. On the one hand you try to look at events from a neutral point of view but on the other hand you quote Palestinian propoganda left, right and centre. Child killing soldiers? Do me a favour. Israel is fighting a war against a terrorist entity intent on destroying it. Israel takes more measures to protect civilians than any other nation has ever done before during a war. Name another nation that was attacked but then supplied water, electricity, humanitarian aid and polio vaccines to the nation that attacked it and butchered its civilians. Name a nation that warned civilians in advance where it would attack to enable them to leave the area and not get injured or killed. Yet from your "objective" viewpoint it's a genocide and the IDF are child killers. You are nothing more than an apologist for terrorists.
And what about your statement :
"Hamas is chiefly a national liberation movement that wants to repair Palestinian society and liberate it from the structural violence inherent in Israel’s dispossession of the Palestinian people and illegal occupation of their lands"
Are you actually listening to what you're saying? They are not a national liberation movement and have no intention of repairing Palestinian society. Read their charter. Don't believe me, believe them. Their aim is to destroy Israel. They wrote it, they keep trying to do it and after 7/10 said they would do it again and again until their are no Jews left. How is this repairing Palestinian society? They have done absolutely nothing for their citizens. They wasted all the aid they received in turning Gaza into a military launching pad instead of developing their own society. They used child labour to build attack tunnels, and many of them died in the process. Gaza could have flourished after Israel forcibly removed all its citizens from there more than 20 years ago. They destroyed infrastructure left by Israel which could have been used by them, such as agricultural greenhouses , as hate was more important than developing something useful.
I could go on and on and tear apart every paragraph you wrote but will stop here as otherwise this will be too long for anyone to read through.
I will state that Israel's right wing extremist members of the Knesset are widely detested in large parts of Israeli society but they do not represent the principles on which the country as a whole carries out it's actions, and should not be held as representative of the whole country. Many governments worldwide have extremist outspoken members who are often ridiculed, but only when it comes to Israel are these people designated worldwide as being the leading voices, which they are not.
To summarise, your article is not a neutral and objective piece, but rather a pandering to Palestinian propoganda and should be seen as such.
How about a bit of context? The whole of Southern Lebanon bordering Israel's northern border had been turned into a military launching ground for Hizbollah, from where they intended to invade Israel. From thus area they have been firing missiles into Israel for years. The whole area is riddled with underground tunnels, bases, weapon caches, rocket launchers etc. Nearly every house in those areas, apart from Christian and Druze villages, was found to be part of the military terrorist structure - weapons and rockets in most houses. Connections to tunnels where the Hizbollah had their HQ's led to many houses. Booby trapped buildings were everywhere. So yes, the IDF destroyed many buildings in order to render the terrorist infrastructure unusable. There is no other way to do it. Context is everything.
Since when are terrorists innocent civilians? I haven't written a single lie. It's all easily verifiable. I suggest you stop making a fool of yourself with your ridiculous statements.
thanks again Jonathan, for being so clear.
HAMAS is partner Netanyahu
https://x.com/Grippan65Momi/status/2082216399552876924
Netanyahu went to Qatar to increase money for HAMAS
https://x.com/redpillb0t/status/2010914740252311777
“Hamas was started by Israel” - Ron Paul, 2009
https://x.com/Partisan_12/status/2011160067865784474
“Do not use other Genocides to describe this one.…”
https://www.timesofisrael.com/for-years-netanyahu-propped-up-hamas-now-its-blown-up-in-our-faces/
The premier’s policy of treating the terror group as a partner, at the expense of Abbas and Palestinian statehood
https://archive.ph/lDTc4
https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2023-10-11/ty-article/.premium/netanyahu-needed-a-strong-hamas/0000018b-1e9f-d47b-a7fb-bfdfd8f30000
https://zeteo.com/p/how-netanyahu-saved-himself-by-destroying
https://x.com/BenSwann_/status/2038708767286587499
2 years ago I told you that Israel was responsible for funding Hamas. Now in 2026, we have verbal confirmation from Netanyahu himself, that that was true.
https://swprs.org/why-israel-created-hamas/
as excuse to exterminate Palestinians
Why don't People know Europe has had Muslims historically?
Need to read it, but ‘Islam vs west' does not exist in reality, it is false.
However,.. ‘Jews VS goyim' does exist in the minds of around 7-20 million cult members from a global population of some 9 billion.
The two state solution is over. Anyone supporting it supports apartheid.
This fills in so many missing pieces and connects the history so well. Makes me want to learn more. Thank you.
You attempt to analyze the details and the politics, which is good. We need to know these things if we are going to change them. Have a look at my analysis from a psychological perspective of a Westerner. https://joejustice2.substack.com/p/why-i-hate-you?r=5b30gt&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true
This has to be one of @Jonathan_K_Cook best and timely articles. The explanation of the I'd suggest, deliberate misconceptions of Islam vs 'The West' are excellently put. Thank you @Jonathan_K_Cook 👍
This essay performs a specific logical sleight of hand worth naming. Having established that Hamas is not ISIS, it implies Hamas is therefore a legitimate political actor whose criminalisation is unjust. But non-identity with the worst available example establishes nothing. The category — Islamism is diverse, some peaceful, some violent — does the work that the evidence was supposed to do. Hamas is never actually placed within it.
The Islamism/Zionism analogy works only at the level of abstraction where all differences disappear. Zionism produced a state with UN membership, courts that convicted its own prime minister and president, and formal treaty obligations. Arab Israeli Supreme Court justices sent both to prison. Islamism produced Iran, the Taliban, and Hamas, three movements with mutually contradictory programmes and no shared institutional form. The comparison selects the altitude at which they look the same and refuses to descend.
What the essay doesn't mention: the 1988 charter's theological call for the killing of Jews. The rooftop executions of Fatah members in 2007, documented by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch. The PA's refusal to hold elections for twenty years because its own leadership knows what Hamas would do with a West Bank mandate. October 7.
Each of those absences carries the conclusion.
Full analysis here: https://alanargent.substack.com/p/the-negative-definition
Thanks Jonathan for the illuminating lesson, much appreciated.
Wow what an impressive history lesson & analysis! Thankyou so much!
Thankyou....it's a very detailed and informative post... I'm not an historian but I think another factor in the European enlightenment was the 8 million dead in the 17c 'genocidal' religious wars (30 years war) mostly in Germany, Europe, nearly half of some populations wiped out, which weakened the bond of Church and State, exhausted the faithful and put intellectuals off religion altogether. It likely fed the conditions for later enlightenment thinking ... Kant's philosophy, especially Perpetual Peace (1795), can be interpreted as a direct response to the "pathological" chaos of European warfare.....The abode of Islam, abode of peace, had conflicts but no comparable religious wars to my knowledge. Perhaps the more recent conflicts across the Shia Sunni divide , worsened by colonialism, but also from Islamism, are already changing thinking on politics in the Islamic world ?
Excellent post. Thank you.👍🏻
An article filled with wilful misinterpretation and bad faith. No doubt it will be widely appreciated by the many oikophobes out there
Not enough Israeli propaganda?
Not nearly
Unfortunately no war is sterile. War is ugly. But sometimes there is no choice. Israel is fighting for its survival and has caused the lowest percentage of deaths amongst non combatants in any war in recent history. However, when a terrorist army operates within a civilian network and uses the civilians as human shields there will always be civilian deaths too. What would you have Israel do? Any logical, workable suggestions come to mind? I don't know where you live but imagine living in a place where your neighbours are constantly trying to kill you in every way possible and this has been going on for decades. Would you turn the other cheek? I don't think so. When you ask an Israeli what he dreams of he will say peace. When you ask Hamas or Hezbollah they will tell you their dream is to destroy Israel. They state it plainly and do not try to hide it. Why is that so difficult for all the Israel haters to understand?
What incredible delusion you spew.
The clarity of this article was just exemplary, and although I probably knew and understood the rest of it, the section on enlightenment was new to me. I was painfully ignorant about the printing press slowing Arabic progress. Thank you..
Mi6, CIA and Mossad created and / or supported the most radical jihadist groups, such as the Taliban, Hamas, Al Qaeda and ISIS. The atrocities committed by these Sunni Muslim groups were used to demonise Shia Muslims, who only fight to defend their territories against Zionist and Saudi colonialism.
I really don't know where to start. On the one hand you try to look at events from a neutral point of view but on the other hand you quote Palestinian propoganda left, right and centre. Child killing soldiers? Do me a favour. Israel is fighting a war against a terrorist entity intent on destroying it. Israel takes more measures to protect civilians than any other nation has ever done before during a war. Name another nation that was attacked but then supplied water, electricity, humanitarian aid and polio vaccines to the nation that attacked it and butchered its civilians. Name a nation that warned civilians in advance where it would attack to enable them to leave the area and not get injured or killed. Yet from your "objective" viewpoint it's a genocide and the IDF are child killers. You are nothing more than an apologist for terrorists.
And what about your statement :
"Hamas is chiefly a national liberation movement that wants to repair Palestinian society and liberate it from the structural violence inherent in Israel’s dispossession of the Palestinian people and illegal occupation of their lands"
Are you actually listening to what you're saying? They are not a national liberation movement and have no intention of repairing Palestinian society. Read their charter. Don't believe me, believe them. Their aim is to destroy Israel. They wrote it, they keep trying to do it and after 7/10 said they would do it again and again until their are no Jews left. How is this repairing Palestinian society? They have done absolutely nothing for their citizens. They wasted all the aid they received in turning Gaza into a military launching pad instead of developing their own society. They used child labour to build attack tunnels, and many of them died in the process. Gaza could have flourished after Israel forcibly removed all its citizens from there more than 20 years ago. They destroyed infrastructure left by Israel which could have been used by them, such as agricultural greenhouses , as hate was more important than developing something useful.
I could go on and on and tear apart every paragraph you wrote but will stop here as otherwise this will be too long for anyone to read through.
I will state that Israel's right wing extremist members of the Knesset are widely detested in large parts of Israeli society but they do not represent the principles on which the country as a whole carries out it's actions, and should not be held as representative of the whole country. Many governments worldwide have extremist outspoken members who are often ridiculed, but only when it comes to Israel are these people designated worldwide as being the leading voices, which they are not.
To summarise, your article is not a neutral and objective piece, but rather a pandering to Palestinian propoganda and should be seen as such.
Israel *is* the terrorist entity; a delusional, cult-like, fascist state. Born out of terrorism and ethnic cleansing.
You are a walking propoganda speaker. one would be forgiven for assuming that you are a hasbara bot.
I am certainly not a bot! Instead of throwing random insults at me, challenge me on facts.
Here's one! Israel has destroyed 50,000 homes in Lebanon since March 2nd.
How about a bit of context? The whole of Southern Lebanon bordering Israel's northern border had been turned into a military launching ground for Hizbollah, from where they intended to invade Israel. From thus area they have been firing missiles into Israel for years. The whole area is riddled with underground tunnels, bases, weapon caches, rocket launchers etc. Nearly every house in those areas, apart from Christian and Druze villages, was found to be part of the military terrorist structure - weapons and rockets in most houses. Connections to tunnels where the Hizbollah had their HQ's led to many houses. Booby trapped buildings were everywhere. So yes, the IDF destroyed many buildings in order to render the terrorist infrastructure unusable. There is no other way to do it. Context is everything.
You lie so easily to promote the annihilation of innocent civilians. Your soul has withered away and you will suffer for eternity for it.
Since when are terrorists innocent civilians? I haven't written a single lie. It's all easily verifiable. I suggest you stop making a fool of yourself with your ridiculous statements.