Ryli Dunlap
2 min readApr 2, 2024

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You obviously harbor some deep Islamophobic sentiments judging by this and other comments. True, Islam has violent adherents. But, all religions do. It's not really fair (or accurate) to characterize Islam as being the sole problem in the world, without also considering the Crusades, or the Inquisition, or Jewish terror squads in the early days of Israel, and Jewish terrorist attacks against Muslims in the West Bank, or the conflict in Northern Ireland - all violence committed in the name of religion by religions other than Islam. Even Buddhism has its violent nationalists that engage in ethnic cleansing in places like Myanmar.

But most importantly - and most relevant to this conflict: You cannot dismiss violence and terror inflicted on the world by Western Imperialism: Especially the USA, and its proxies (like Israel). There is plenty of ideological fanaticism on that side: both religious (Zionist ideology) and capitalistic/imperialistic (i.e. aggressive/violent conquest of land and resources).

The US wars over oil and other resources are capitalistic crusades, ideologically driven by profit and greed.

The conflict in the Middle East is largely a result of Western Imperial meddling. Islamic violence largely rose out of a response to that.

The philosophical question is: Why should displaced people have to bow to those that wish to displace them in the first place? History is full of examples of oppressed and colonized people lashing out violently against their oppressors/invaders/occupiers: slave revolts, the indigenous population in the Americas (who continued to attack white settlements into the 1900s), Indians against the British in India etc.

Virtually no society in history accepted their sacking or subjugation, or displacement with welcome, outstretched arms.

The way the West (and many of its citizens whose brains are fried on pro-war/pro-imperialist propaganda) expects the people it attacks in its endless wars of imperialist expansion to just roll over and take it peacefully, is absurd. Of course they're going to lash out violently. People always have, throughout history.

The displaced people that become part of a different nation due so often only after waging a ferocious battle for their survival. The indigenous population in the US is a good example. The US killed over 55 million (or 90%) in a mass genocide during the expansion of the US. The indigenous fought the settlers and the US Army for decades.

Israel is an extremely young country — it's a relative toddler. The US is a pre-pubescent teen. Both were founded on the idea of, "There's some nice land we want over there with people already on it, we'll take it!" Israel is basically going through now what the US went through for 200 years committing genocide against the indigenous population who refuse to be culled off peacefully.

Typically, violent colonial projects like US and Israel end up 'solving' this through various iterations of genocide and forced displacement. In this, the US and Israel really are kindred spirits. Evidently, people don't always respond peacefully when faced with the prospect of mass extermination, regardless of their religion, including Muslims.

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Ryli Dunlap

Aspiring writer. Recovering programmer. Many opinions — some unpopular. I unload them here. Blog: https://pontifi.co Dance/Music: https://rylito.com