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PaperclipPerfector  6d ago (text post)   24949 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of December 16, 2024

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A car rammed into people at a Christmas market in Germany. Ok, first thought is obviously a foreigner and very likely an Islamist, but...

The Saudi national had arrived in Germany in 2006 as an asylum seeker, arguing that he fled the Islamic theocracy that ruled Saudi Arabia, according to a senior German security official familiar with the investigation. He obtained refugee status and later received permanent residence in the country, where he started working as a doctor and psychotherapist. He lived in the town of Bernburg.

The man rose to prominence in the small Saudi community in Germany as an anti-Islam and women’s rights activist. He ran a website and several social-media channels warning about the dangers of Islamization and advising prospective asylum seekers, the German security official said. The man posted frequently about what he said was the persecution of women in the Middle East.

He had also shared pro-Israel content since the Oct. 7 attack, as well a support for Germany’s anti-immigration AfD party.

In his recent social-media posts published days before the attack he claimed the German government was promoting the country’s Islamization, and accused authorities of censoring and persecuting him because of his critical views of the religion. On his website, he warned prospective refugees to avoid Germany because of what he said was its government’s tolerance of radical Islam.

So...he was assimilated but mentally disturbed? Obviously the preference is to not ram your car into anyone, but if was intent on hurting people, why not a demographic aligned with his alleged views?

It seems to me that there are three distinct options...

the first (and in my opinion most likely option) is that the media is simply lying about the perp being "anti-muslim" or "aligned with the alt-right". They are desperate to deflect blame and acting acordingingly. You don't really believe that they are above fabricacating evidence do you?

The second is that this is all "Taqiyya", and the perp was a genuine Jihadi.

The third is that there there is a distinct subset of the extremly online ("Woke") Right who no matter how much they might claim to hate immigrants and people of color, they will always hate "Normies" and "Christians" and the "Grill-Pilled" more because the former is the far-group and the latter is the out-group.

Also what is this " car rammed into people" bullshit, the car didn’t do anything, the driver did.

You have hit on a pet peeve of mine, the incessant barking of "Taqiyya! Taqiyya! Taqiyya!" by right-wingers on Twitter who learned the term from Wikipedia and think they've stumbled onto the secret Muslim master plan.

Taqiyya refers, generally, to concealing your beliefs in the face of oppression or imminent danger. E.g., Muslims who were forced to "convert" to Christianity on pain of death were still considered good Muslims if they pretended to convert to save themselves. There are also some esoteric Islamic beliefs that some sects consider religious "mysteries" that should be hidden from unbelievers, even if it means lying about them. And various other corner cases covered in the sort of legalistic parsing of the Quran and hadiths that Muslims love to do. Islam, like most religions with a long legalistic history, has been divided into a multitude of sects and schools of thought, so like Christians and Jews (and non-Abrahamic faiths as well), you can find different branches who declare other branches flatly wrong or even heretical, and come up with all sorts of bizarre edge cases under which this or that practice is "allowed."

So far as I know, there are no mainstream Islamic sects (or even fringe groups, from what I have been able to find) that preach "Taqiyya" meaning "Pretend to be a non-Muslim to infiltrate a host society as a sleeper agent." I have never heard of even jihadists advocating that Muslims pretend to be atheists or Christians to sneak into the West so they can attack infidels. I suppose some of them might approve of this, but that sort of long game (spend 10 years pretending to be an anti-Muslim atheist and harassing people on social media?) would be hard to pull off for a professional spy under deep cover.

The more likely explanation is that this guy has always been crazy and had violent and vengeful impulses, and something pushed him over the edge. His motives seem to be a mix of anti-Saudi, anti-Islam, anti-German, and anti-West, in a way that anti-Muslims would love to condense down to "Deep cover jihadist practicing taqiyya" but doesn't really seem to match the facts.

It strikes me that a lot of terrorists/mass shooters lately have been a sort of ideological Rorschach blob. Like Luigi Mangione, whom both rightists and leftists are still assiduously trying to assign to the other tribe.

I'm somewhat more sympathetic to the more general anti-immigrationist argument that you can take the fanatic out of Saudi but you can't take the Saudi out of fanaticism (he seems to have retained a very jihadist psychology even if he stopped being a Muslim), but "Taqiyya" seems to have become a lazy, infinitely generalizeable dismissal of anything an Arab says because, you know, they're all lying double-agents practicing Taqiyya to fool the kafir.

The second is that this is all "Taqiyya", and the perp was a genuine Jihadi.

Such a long con for such meagre reward (a mere five dead at the last count) seems a bit unlikely to me.

The likeliest scenario imo seems to be a psychotic episode. Presumably, for hallucinations just as for dreams, the brain twists concepts it already has. (Often the specific symptoms of mental illness are what your culture expects them to be -- like if the mind still follows some script.) I think your world view will inform what hallucinations you are 'supposed' to have. A Christian who is convinced that the devil talks to people and entices them to evil deeds might be more likely to hallucinate the devil, while someone who presumably thinks that the great evil in the world is Islam might be more likely to have a vision of Allah ordering them to do some stereotypical terror attack.

My other scenario is slightly on the conspiracy side. Presumably, someone from a Muslim country who is loudly against Islam is an irritation to Jihadists, who might just decide to get hold of some of his loved ones (perhaps in the Arab world) and blackmail him into committing some atrocity. Of course, this has very much not been their playbook so far. Also, they would likely want to claim responsibility for the attack after the fact.

The likeliest scenario imo seems to be a psychotic episode.

He got reported to the police for making the same threat last year. He was convicted for threats in '13..

https://x.com/2ltifaa/status/1870273133766123643

The dankness of the timeline is off the scale.

where he started working as a doctor and psychotherapist.

This is why Szasz is undefeated. What the fuck use is a field of medicine that purports to help nutters but the doctor himself, and his colleagues who interacted with him, can't spot that he's the type of nutter who is going to ram a car into a Christkindlmart?

Uh, didn’t he get reported to the German police multiple times and they didn’t do anything?

Imagine the tug of war there deciding whether he should be targeted.

But he is Herr Doktor! But an afd supporter! ...But a Newcomer. But an islamophobe!

I know for a fact that by now they have a few Turks on the police force by now. Send one of them to crack a skull, and watch the media have an aneurysm of that tug of war.

But he mowed down women and children! But they were probably a bunch of racists!

Agreed. That was my first thought as well.

Psychotherapy is just… criminal at this point, imo. They have so much power and authority in society yet clearly do not have any idea what they’re doing.

So, this is very interesting. I wonder: was his plan to essentially make this look like an Islamist attack, to stir up hostility toward Muslim immigration? I imagine he understood that everyone would, justifiably, assume that an Arab man driving his car into a Christmas market (with an explosive device inside, no less!) would be interpreted by all sides as an Islamist terror attack. Maybe he was hoping nobody would identify him and discover his Twitter account? If he did expect people to find his account, I really have no idea what political outcome (if any) he was hoping to facilitate as a result of this attack.

On the one hand, his background as a former refugee from the Middle East makes him an incredibly unwieldy weapon for progressives to use to discredit immigration skeptics; on the other hand, his support for the AfD and his criticism of Muslim immigration makes him pretty much impossible to use as a cudgel by the right wing. Some commentators, such as Keith Woods, are taking the position that this proves that all Arab immigration to Europe should be cut off, because even the apparently liberal/assimilated ones are still ticking time bombs of potential violence; this seems fairly tendentious even to me, given what we know about the guy so far.

I wonder: was his plan to essentially make this look like an Islamist attack, to stir up hostility toward Muslim immigration?

He hated Germans and threatened them repeatedly. If it's an act it was a years long performance.

Did he hate Germans? Or did he hate the German government? I haven’t seen any evidence of the former, although I’d be perfectly happy to be confronted with some.

I haven’t seen any evidence of the former

murdering them in a terrorist attack targeting them seems to be at least a weak evidence

Not necessarily! One of his messages that I did see said something like, “The only thing the German government respects is violence. I’m going to have to do something violent to get them to respect me.” It’s entirely possible that he was merely indifferent to the suffering of the people he maimed and killed; that the purpose of the attack was not to make them suffer, but rather to have the moment of their suffering become a political flashpoint.

  1. Intentionally killing random Germans to punish Germans in German government counts to me as hating Germans.

  2. Even if you do not agree with (1) then posting in public how you plan to murder Germans, finding justifications and then murdering bunch of Germans is at least a weak evidence that they in fact hated Germans. Even if they have not tweeted about it outright.

was his plan to essentially make this look like an Islamist attack, to stir up hostility toward Muslim immigration? I imagine he understood that everyone would, justifiably, assume that an Arab man driving his car into a Christmas market (with an explosive device inside, no less!) would be interpreted by all sides as an Islamist terror attack. Maybe he was hoping nobody would identify him and discover his Twitter account?

I'm going to have to write this story someday.

I’ll consolidate my replies to @SecureSignals, @Walterodim, and @Belisarius, since they’re all making similar points.

Firstly, I agree that this guy should not have been allowed to live in Germany. Now, to be clear, he came as an asylum seeker in 2006, nearly a decade before Merkel’s Mistake; at the time, Arab migration to Germany was, as I understand it, quite minimal (it was Turks who were by far the largest source of Middle Eastern immigration at the time) and it’s significantly more understandable that he would have been let in. There was no large insular Arab community in Germany into which he could have ensconced himself to obviate the need to assimilate. He was fluent in English, and had clear and explicit anti-Islam sentiments. He seems basically like an Ayaan Hirsi Ali type, and given how live a threat Islamist terror seemed at that time, I think it was understandable to expect this guy to act as a potentially impactful voice steering young Arab men away from Islamist radicalization. (And, to be clear, it’s entirely plausible that he did have some impact, substantial or not, of that nature at the time.) Given what we know now in hindsight, not only about him personally but about the larger effects of Arab immigration to Europe, it’s clear that the stance toward asylum seekers should have been far more exclusionary than it was at the time.

However, I want to make sure that opposition to Arab immigration is based on specific, articulable, predictive claims. I oppose large-scale Arab immigration because of the specific qualities that I expect most Arabs (and, especially, most Arabs choosing to emigrate to Europe) to possess, and because of the specific actions they are likely to take and the motivations behind those actions. Let’s look at what specific problems/pathologies I expect to accompany large-scale Arab immigration, and analyze the extent to which this guy embodied those pathologies:

I expect Arabs to create culturally-insular ethnic enclaves, in which they are able to continue to replicate the cultural practices of their homeland rather than assimilating. Well, this guy was fluent in English, and had already marked himself as not only culturally-distinct from the vast majority of Arabs, but actively in opposition to them. It is true that he brought baggage and cultural grievances with him from his homeland; however, those grievances toward Arab Muslims are pretty much exactly the same grievances that liberal Westerners had about Arab Muslims at the time. “They’re culturally backward, they mistreat women, their culture is anti-Western, and anti-science, they’re susceptible to radical jihadist beliefs.” All of those grievances are true and valid! This is the Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, Ayaan Hirsi Ali line about Arab Muslims. They’re not the sort of arcane inter-ethnic blood feuds and tribal jockeying we normally associate with foreign ethnic groups immigrating and co-mingling in places like the U.K. and Canada.

I expect a large percentage of Arab immigrants to be uneducated, unskilled, to spend a long time (potentially their entire lives) unemployed and on welfare. Well, this guy was a doctor — okay fine, a psychiatrist, so barely a doctor, but at least it’s a well-paying job that kept him gainfully employed and interacting economically with the German public. He certainly doesn’t pattern-match to the average Arab in Germany; as @Walterodim points out, he’s more like the average educated Indian in Canada.

I expect large numbers of Arab men to fall into lives of crime, both petty and organized. Well, again, this guy does not appear to have any criminal record. He hasn’t fallen in with Arab gangs, he hasn’t become some listless glowering thug milling about the town square acting like a savage.

I expect some small number of Arab men to commit serious acts of terrorism, motivated by jihadist beliefs and by a hatred of their host societies. This is where we have to carefully discern what happened here. In pretty much all of the other terror attacks committed by Arabs in Europe, the ideological motivations were clearly religious and specifically Islamist in character. The Bataclan attackers, the guys driving their trucks into markets, the guys cutting priests’ heads off — they all make their Islamist beliefs very explicit. That’s not why this guy appears to have done what he did.

So, why did he? If we want to talk about ideology, his views are difficult to pattern-match to other large ideological trends. On the one hand, he was very consistent about Germany’s need to resist Islamization. In that sense, he aligns very strongly with the AfD and other right-wing nationalist groups. However, he also wanted more immigration of a very specific class of Arab Middle Easterners: ex-Muslim/anti-Islam refugees, and particularly educated women. In that sense he’s not only similar to the more moderate right (what wignats derisively call “the kosher right) but also to some of the more eclectic right-wingers who say the West should let in plenty of attractive female refugees, while cutting off all or nearly all male immigration. And of course his stated commitment to progressive values such as feminism and economic leftism puts him almost more in line with the sort of leftist terrorism Germany faced in the 70’s. (Although that terrorism had a strong pro-Palestinian valence, whereas this guy was a Zionist.) But in this case his choice of targets doesn’t really seem to align with any expected ideological movements. This was no act of right-wing nationalist terrorism — he’s no Anders Breivik or Brenton Tarrant — because his victims were (at least presumably) white Germans. He really did seem to resent Germany and to want to strike a blow against it on behalf of his in-group, but his in-group isn’t Arabs as a whole, it isn’t Muslims, and it isn’t even Saudis. It appears to just be “ex-Muslim apostates (especially women) fleeing the Middle East.” I was joking yesterday, “Is this the first Reddit Atheist terror attack?” Yes, he’s a brown Arab, but in terms of his worldview he’s got more in common with murdered Dutch anti-Muslim filmmaker Theo Van Gogh than with the Muslims who killed him.

So, in what ways is this guy’s terror attack similar to previous acts of Arab terrorism? What patterns does it match? Certainly in terms of its specific methodology it’s similar to other terror attacks we’ve seen in Europe, both with the use of a car driving through a Christmas market, and with the (thankfully unused) explosive device. But in terms of its motivations I think it’s sufficiently different from previous acts of terrorism that it’s not really instructive. While obviously there are genetically-influenced psychological differences between population groups, and Arabs are a population group with heritable traits, I don’t think anyone’s found any evidence for a “terrorism gene” among that population. If Arabs tend to be more violent than Europeans, it’s because they tend to be lower-IQ and to live in low-trust backward societies wherein violence is an effective and sanctioned way to obtain power and resources. It’s not because some voice in the back of their head, whispering to them like the Orc god Gruumsh, instructs them to drive their cars into crowds.

I saw some DR commentator (probably Captive Dreamer) say, “If that’s the model migrant, imagine how much worse the rest are.” This is probably effective propaganda, but it doesn’t seem very intellectually substantive. This guy’s pathologies, and the reasons he shouldn’t have been in Europe, were of a markedly different character from those of the true dregs of the Arab world which have been washing up on the shores of Europe. The “model migrants” in, say, Canada are problematic largely because they use their political power to facilitate bringing in more of their countrymen. In that narrow sense, this guy’s story is certainly instructive. It is true that his #1 loyalty was to his in-group, which did not include most white Germans, and that in the end he was willing to commit savage violence against his host country in order to (in some twisted, confused, politically aimless way) earn concessions for people like himself.

There are, though, two distinct sets of concerns when it comes to the immigration discussion - one is about the dangers presented by the importation of educated foreigners who will use political and cultural power to advocate for increased immigration, and who will dilute the political and cultural power of the native population. Whatever you want to say about these types of people, likelihood of committing terror attacks has simply never been a plausible vector of attack against them. This is, so far as I can tell, the first high-profile attack of this kind committed by a guy with this background and these specific beliefs, and I don’t think we’ll see many more examples in the future.

The other half of the immigration discussion is about low-skilled, unassimilable, criminally-inclined young, susceptible-to-jihadist-radicalization men and their welfare-dependent spouses. While this has largely been the story of Arab immigration to Europe (particularly post-2015) it is not this guy’s story. Whatever he is, he’s not an example of that. He did assimilate to an ideology with a lot of Western adherents; he was just willing to do what few of those Westerners would have done as a result of that ideology. (And I want people to be careful in their speculations about why he was willing to do so.)

People like Keith Woods would like to essentially merge these conversations and say that it’s all the same conversation: All foreigners in Europe are bad, none of them belong there, even the supposed best of them bring problems, they’ll never be assimilable, they’ll always work against us. And what I’m saying is that I don’t think this is credible. There are foreigners in Europe — for example, East Asian immigrants — who have not, so far as I can tell, created any problems for their host societies. If Germany let in 100,000 Vietnamese immigrants tomorrow, my prediction is that those immigrants would flourish, as they have in America. It’s not simply “being foreign” that makes Arab immigrants a bad fit for European society; it’s their specific traits, the specific beliefs they have, their lower IQ and lower impulse control, their hatred for Western norms, their parasitic dependency on the largesse of the welfare state, and the difficulty in integrating them into society. This guy’s problems don’t really map onto any of those concerns, except in a roundabout and strained way.

The argument people like Keith Woods makes is that these Arab immigrants will never be German, no matter how long they are there or if they learn the language, whether they commit crime or do not commit crime, whatever they Tweet or whatever political policy they support, whatever religion they will follow, the only certainty is that they will never be German. So your rebuttal is not responsive to the issue they fundamentally have with the mass migration of non-European people to European civilization.

It's not just about crime, it's not just about religion, it's not just about terrorism, although those things can be relevant symptoms, it's about jealously guarding a European genetic and civilizational inheritance from being Africanized, replaced by Arabs or Chinese, Indians or whatever.

Your argument is most responsive to the Conservatives who just say "hey, I'm not racist I just oppose mass Arab migration because I don't want terrorist attacks in my Christmas villages." For those people you can do your well ackhually it wasn't Islamic extremism that inspired the attack, but that just doesn't work on the DR perspective.

If Germany let in 100,000 Vietnamese immigrants tomorrow, my prediction is that those immigrants would flourish, as they have in America.

Why stop at 100,000? Why not 100 million? Even if mass migration of Asians, Vietnamese, Chinese to Germany caused a reduction in crime and created economic growth do you think the DR should accept these foreigners because they commit less crime or raise GDP? Why not replace all of Europe with Chinese if it lowered crime and raised IQ? It's only conservatives who say it's about those things.

This terrorist attack is pertinent to the DR perspective because it provides a symbolic counterexample to the lie that, no matter who you are, you can go to Germany, learn the language and obey the law and, congratulations you're German! No you are not. The American Midwest family with Germanic ancestry they don't even know about is more German than they will ever be. So this man ostensibly being the "model" Arab immigrant but still become inspired to commit this act is shattering the liberal illusion of assimilation, or that being German is just an idea.

He really did seem to resent Germany and to want to strike a blow against it on behalf of his in-group, but his in-group isn’t Arabs as a whole, it isn’t Muslims, and it isn’t even Saudis. It appears to just be “ex-Muslim apostates (especially women) fleeing the Middle East.”

His motivation was European immigration policy. You try to be ultra-specific about it to brush it as a one-off, but it introduces the likelihood of violence in response to Right-wing Immigration reform in Europe. We may see more of that type of violence than radical Islamic-inspired violence, although a lot of it will be blended together.

We have seen a similar pattern with Free Speech in Europe: terrorist attacks in response to offensive speech did not motivate backlash against mass migration it motivated crackdowns on "hate speech" out of fear of offending Muslims. So if we see more Arab terrorists attack Europe because of European immigration reform we will likely see pressure put against immigration reform. This is relevant especially at a time when parties are flirting with the idea of remigration.

You don't think that AfD and other European parties beginning to support remigration is likely to inspire any more of this violence? We already see race riots and organized street violence by African and Arab gangs. That already happens, and it's political, it's not driven by radical Islam. So your denial that we won't see more of this sort of political violence is absurd.

Yes, the likelihood is near 100% that this sort of violence is going to influence European policy on immigration, most likely it will cause authorities to crackdown harder on political support for remigration because authorities will plausibly be able to say that supporting this policy is likely to foment violence. Certainly if that policy were to be pursued, then violence from deportees would be a top concern of that policy. So there's simply no reality in which the prospect of violence from these African and Arab migrants is irrelevant, Muslim or otherwise.

This attack is more relevant because it was motivated by European immigration policy than if it were just radical Islam. It's proof that mass migration irrevocably influences politics and "assimilation" is fundamentally a lie.

I don't agree with you but I appreciate this post because it perfectly summarizes the reactionary/alt-right position on immigration, which you've neatly condensed into this sentence:

he American Midwest family with Germanic ancestry they don't even know about is more German than they will ever be. So this man ostensibly being the "model" Arab immigrant but still become inspired to commit this act is shattering the liberal illusion of assimilation, or that being German is just an idea.

I don't know if you're American or European. As an American, I think plenty of people from all over the world can assimilate and become culturally Southern, Midwestern, etc. I think this because I've met second and third generation Americans who behave much more like their white American counterparts than people in the country their parents and grandparents came from, and these differences go well beyond language. I've met Hispanic Catholics who I feel a much closer affinity to because of our shared faith than white atheist liberals who I'm genetically closer to. And so on.

But I'm interested in hearing other European perspectives on this. I know @Folamh3 is Irish, I think @Stefferi and @2rafa are European? Sorry I don't know more.

I think plenty of people from all over the world can assimilate and become culturally Southern

The word 'can' is doing alot of heavy lifting in your argument.

One of the elements that cemented my current opinion on such matters - among many - was talking with a friend of mine. Ethnically Italian, his family has been here for over a century.

And yet, despite this, there's parts of his family the rest know damn well to stay away from. Why? Because they're the ones connected to organized crime. The mafia.

A century of assimilation, and they're still culturally and ethnically distinct, with problems from the 'old world' still present. Hell, there's a sizable minority that have dual citizenship!

And this is with Italians. I grew up around alot of them. Hell, my father's godparents were damn near pure-blooded Italian!

And you're going to sit here, and suggest, straight to my face, that other ethnic groups are going to be better than them?

No. You import the people, you import the culture, for good and for ill. So stop importing them.

But I'm interested in hearing other European perspectives on this

From Europe, Poland to be more specific.

For me "American Midwest family with Germanic ancestry they don't even know about is more German than they will ever be" is absolutely laughable position.

No, just because you can trace some Polish ancestry does not make you Pole. You have no genetic memory etc. You are welcome in my country but if you start talking in English (not knowing any Polish and having meme-level understanding of Polish culture) how you are Polish then I am surely not going to agree with you.

Just because your grandfather could say 10 words in Polish, 5 of them being curses does not make you Polish. If all your grandfathers and grandmothers were Polish but you lost language, lost culture that makes you white, not Polish. (though if someone wants to recover that, it is entirely welcome to do so and I would be happy to help if I would encounter such person)

I have quite high bar what I would expect before I would consider someone to be Polish. But at least in theory it seems possible to me for someone green/yellow/black/purple/German to become Polish. And there were cases of this happening.

And yes, specially for our resident SSman: many people with Jewish ancestry were Poles, some of them were Poles practising Jewish religion, for some of them they were distinguishable only by genealogy and surnamed. (some failed to do so or had completely distinctive cultural identify). Though nowadays it is extremely rare as German murdered millions of Poles and Jews after invading. And while under communist occupation many were kicked out. Or preferred to escape from communist paradise.

And we had and have Poles with German, Belarusians, Russian, Ukrainian ancestry. Maybe if you would look really hard you would find some Poles with other skin colours (note: I can easily find some prominent people with Polish citizenship which are yellow/black, this does not make them Poles).

I've seen a lot of Indians in the South. I've never seen a culturally Southern Indian. It would probably just make me laugh. It's not them, and they are not us.

But I'll admit that my motivation is not "We must preserve Southern Culture!" My motivation is directing ethnogenesis in a eugenic direction, and I am far more terrified of my descendants being half-Indian (or at least the macro-effect of such an ethnogenesis in aggregate) than I am of Southern Culture going away. I am more concerned with Europe becoming Arab than I am with German culture per se.

My motivation is directing ethnogenesis in a eugenic direction

That's what we've been arguing about‽

The way things are going (assuming humanity survives at all), a century from now we will be able to take the best genes from every branch and twig of the human family tree, and splice them into anyone who wants them!

That is science fiction; if, when, or how any of that happens does not dismiss the immediate concern of demographic replacement by non-Europeans. There would obviously be huge political pressure regulating how that technology is used. Mate selection is not a deprecated concern, and it's foolish to put all the eggs literally in the basket of "mate selection doesn't matter because gene editing is going to save us."

That is science fiction

And what would you call the idea of people on multiple continents conversing with one another without leaving their homes, by means of a network of computing machines spanning the entire globe and beyond?

If I have to be maximally charitable to the ethnomaxxing view, we're going to need stable high-trust high-IQ societies in order to get to gene editing within the century.

In my effortpost from last week, I talked about the "respectable" media's reluctance to mention anything about the identity of the perpetrator who committed the shocking knife attack which precipitated the November riots in 2023. Some outlets, in an effort to disguise the fact that he was Algerian, described him as "born outside of Ireland but an Irish citizen" or similar.

The clear intention was to give the impression that the perpetrator was "one of our own", so racism was misplaced. But of course, an anti-immigration activist would counter - the fact that he was an Irish citizen makes it even worse! It'd be one thing if he snuck into the UK, took a ship to Belfast then crossed the border into the south and applied for "asylum" as a "refugee", and committed this attack while he was in the legal limbo of waiting for his asylum application to be processed. The Irish government could perhaps be forgiven for extending clemency to a man about whom they know nothing by allowing him to stay in the country pending his asylum application, and then he goes on to commit a terrible crime. That's the kind of unfortunate but inevitable outcome that could theoretically happen even in a country with an extremely strict immigration policy.

But no - this is a man who has already jumped through all the hoops of applying for Irish citizenship, was thoroughly vetted, and still went on to commit a shocking and completely unprovoked crime like this. If a nutcase like this can pass the vetting process, clearly it's not stringent enough.

I don't know. I certainly believe that second-generation immigrants to Ireland can be fully assimilated (I've met plenty of women of Chinese descent who sound more Irish than I do; I work with a woman who has at least one Algerian parent and didn't clock her as anything other than Irish until she told me, although her name was a dead giveaway in retrospect; I once dated a Polish girl who sounded Irish from top to bottom), but I have no firsthand experience of a first-generation immigrant fully assimilating.

Some outlets, in an effort to disguise the fact that he was Algerian, described him as "born outside of Ireland but an Irish citizen" or similar.

I should switch news providers, because that's still much better than what I saw (at 1:05): "Police say false information quickly spread through social media, that the attacker might have been a foreigner, and that appeared to fuel the frenzy of destruction that followed". Their earlier article isn't much better: "The violence began after rumours circulated that a foreign national was responsible for an attack outside a Dublin school on Thursday afternoon. Authorities haven't disclosed the suspect's nationality."

I couldn't find any followup articles offering more information.

Obviously there are different tiers of the anti-immigration position that include various forms of nativism and not-nativism.

What is likely, though, is that most Western Europeans would probably have quietly acquiesced to mass immigration and demographic change without any major drama if the migrants had been, say, all Vietnamese or Filipino. Not because the nativist position would have been ‘disproven’, but because there would be none of these extreme staccato incidents of terrorist violence, things like Rotherham, Charlie Hebdo etc that draw a great deal of public attention.

In the US the majority of the public are still relatively torn on mass immigration, and the large scale deportation of most legal immigrants, let alone actually stripping naturalised migrants of citizenship, is an extreme fringe position. In Canada the public only really turned after they started importing pretty much the entirety of the Punjab at like 2% of the whole population per year.

There isn’t a huge (foreign) religion/race-neutral nativist constituency in most Western countries, meaning the population that wants everyone gone regardless of who they are, how they act and what they believe. Even in Iberia where there’s been huge legal immigration (often of people who are rather far from being of pure euro descent) from Latin America almost all anti-immigrant hostility is directed towards migrants from the Islamic world.

Counterpoint: there seems to be a massive backlash to migration in Canada from Indian immigrants, and that is not caused by crime or terrorism by Indian migrants.

What's happening is the European groups, too, take the political playbook from US Conservatives. "We're not racist (that would be evil!) we just think radical Islam is bad mmkaay." But that is downstream of the political pressures of liberal hegemony, there's a practical reason it centers on a religious critique of migration rather than a racial critique of migration.

Remigration strikes a more nativist cord than it does a purely anti-Islamic cord.

I think in the counterfactual where the majority of recent non-European migrants to Europe aren’t from the Islamic world is one in which anti immigration sentiment is far lower. As far as Canada goes, they did the equivalent of the US importing like 7m Indians a year several years in a row, which is very unusual even by Western mass immigration standards.

Before 2020, Canadians didn’t seem to care much about immigration, Trudeau won a landslide, and there had been mass immigration of Chinese and Indians for at least 25 years.

Depending on whether you think they are Europeans or not, you have a non-counterfactual point of comparison: Spain has had tons of immigration from Latin America, and while there has obviously been some backlash, it doesn't seem to be as strong as in the rest of Europe.

Latin Americans are already Spanish-speaking Catholics, so you'd expect them to be more culturally similar and willing to integrate when they're not.

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Counterpoint: there seems to be a massive backlash to migration in Canada from Indian immigrants, and that is not caused by crime or terrorism by Indian migrants.

Counter counterpoint- they're Indian. Mexican and Ukrainian and Vietnamese immigrants would have gotten away with it.

Minor counter counter counterpoint

There is some minor hostility to Ukrainians in Poland. But it is far from widespread and that is after massive shock migration due to war.

Though if 4% of country would be imported from Syria/Libya/Turkey/Nigeria/Russia/China/etc within months then reaction would be much poorer then welcoming then minor hostility months/years later.

Canada is much more welcoming of outsiders than Poland, though.

I mean, the right wing normie answer is ‘people like that don’t belong in Europe’. And when pressed on ‘people like that’ they’ll eventually come down with ‘Arabs’ or ‘children of Muslims’.

As far as what his motivations are, I’ll point to A) him almost certainly having screws loose(see the mass murder, and also being a psychiatrist) and B) it’s entirely possible he doesn’t make much distinction between Christianity and Islam and just hates theists. Stranger things have happened. There was a mass shooter in the US who seemed to have new atheist motivations as well; it’s not an everyday occurrence but it’s happened at least once.

B) it’s entirely possible he doesn’t make much distinction between Christianity and Islam and just hates theists.

These Christmas markets are not theist occurrences in any meaningful way, and as he had been in Germany a long time he would know it. In fact, many of them have been renamed to Winter markets to be more inclusive (to the disdain of the defenders of the Christian Occident), and there is nothing specifically Christian about drinking Gluehwein, eating all kinds of food from food booths and shopping for overpriced small presents in the other booths. It would be like going after Coca-Cola for being Christian given that the central figure of Christmas is Santa Claus and ad spots by Coke have shaped the public image of Santa.

I mean I think it’s culturally Christian in the sense that Christians is specifically Christ’s Mass in the origin of the name. And almost all the trapping can ultimately be traced back to Christian stories and practices. Santa is a repackaged St. Nicholas of Myrna (who actually punched Arius in the face at the council of Nicaea) who was generous with the poor. The Christmas tree is seen as a symbol of Christmas and the star comes from the magi seeing the Bethlehem star. It’s a holiday with a lot of secular trappings, bu5 it is based in Christianity and in no other religion. I don’t think he could have plausibly mistaken it for a Jewish or Muslim thing, as those groups don’t celebrate any of Christmas.

I think that European Christmas, like Easter, is actually a syncretism of early Christian traditions and pagan ones. The barn with figurines of Joseph and Maria and the magi is obviously based on the bible, while the date (Winter solstice) and the Christmas tree (as a symbol of something visibly being alive in the depth of winter) seem pagan-ish to me. Likewise Easter: remembering the crucification and supposed resurrection of Jesus is one thing, but the rabbits and eggs seem pagan to me -- after all, Jesus died for mankind's sins, not to restore fertility to the natural world.

My point is though that while of course being based on vaguely Christian traditions, this is way removed from the reality of Christmas markets.

An Jihadist terrorist targeting German Winter/Weihnachts markets to specifically strike a blow against Christianity feels roughly like a Persian terrorist targeting the Winter Olympiad in Salt Lake City to strike a blow against the Athenian League -- I could see their path of reasoning, but still think that either terrorist would have some fundamental misconceptions about their enemy.

The muslim angle is overrated. People wouldn't have been happier if the migrants were christians from Ethiopia. Muslim at this point means non Asian, non white immigrant. Islam is just an easy and relatively politically correct term to use. The basic premise holds regardless if he was muslim, Christian, athiest or Zoroastrian, MENA migration doesn't work in Europe.

The same people would not have been any happier to take South African Zulus but would have gladly taken South Africans of a Boer persuasion. Trying to own AfD by pointing out the specifics of a Saudi's religious beliefs isn't going to work because the AfD voters don't want mass immigration from MENA regardless of religion.

Yes they would have. They wouldn't have been perfectly happy but they certainly would have been happier. Islam obviously isn't the only issue but it is a fairly major one.

Indonesia is the largest muslim country. They would probably be less disliked as immigrants than christians from Zimbabwe.

Religion isn't the only thing that matters but it is important. Would people have been happier if Syrian Maronites or Sunnis came when the civil war started? Or what about Christian Zimbabweans or Muslim Mozambicans?

Eh, I think Maronite and Coptic immigration is mostly pretty uncontroversial in the societies to which they migrate.

on the other hand, his support for the AfD and his criticism of Muslim immigration makes him pretty much impossible to use as a cudgel by the right wing.

You really have to be kidding? The Right Wing argument is that he does not belong in Europe, no matter if he's a doctor or what he tweets, in a box or with a fox, not here or there, not anywhere in Europe. That argument can and should be used as a cudgel by the right wing, at least the Right Wing who acknowledges that this is about race and not merely about religion. The people who can't use this as a cudgel are those who pretend that this is just about Islam, and mass Arab migration to Europe would be fine if they just weren't Muslim. Is that an argument you accept Hoffmeister?

"Arabs don't belong in Europe." "But this Arab who slaughtered a bunch of Europeans tweeted pro-Israel stuff!" How could you think that's responsive at all to the argument?

How does a refugee slaughtering a bunch of people in a Christmas market not validate the anti-refugee political perspective? Because the refugee wasn't Muslim? That is just ridiculous.

Keith Woods is correct, and the Right Wing who pretends that mass migration from the third world is only a problem because of religious incompatibility do not form the ranks of the DR, and people like Woods have long made the argument that it's about race and not about religion.

The Right Wing argument is that he does not belong in Europe, no matter if he's a doctor or what he tweets, in a box or with a fox, not here or there, not anywhere in Europe.

SEcUreSignalS—coincidence? I think not. I'd read the shit out of an anti-Arab and African migration book written in this style.

Keith Woods is correct, and the Right Wing who pretends that mass migration from the third world is only a problem because of religious incompatibility do not form the ranks of the DR, and people like Woods have long made the argument that it's about race and not about religion.

I'm not familiar with Keith Woods, but my sense is that the part I bolded isn't true. Granted the dissident right (I presume that's the DR) is a nebulous coalition, but I think most of them are not HBD-pilled, or at least believe the religion aspect is more important than the racial one. Change that from a descriptive "do not" to a prescriptive "should not" and I'd agree.

Do you like men of Islam?

I do not like them, Sam-I-am.
I do not like men of Islam.

Would you like them here or there?

I do not like them here or there.
I do not like them anywhere.
I do not like them, Sam-I-am.
I do not like men of Islam.

Would you like them in Berlin?
Even shorn of their foreskin?

I would not like them in Berlin.
I care not if they have foreskin.
I do not like them here or there.
I do not like them anywhere.
I do not like them, Sam-I-am.
I do not like men of Islam.

Would you like them in a mosque?
Or standing 'round their big black box?

Not in a mosque. Not round a box.
Not in Berlin. Without foreskin.
I do not like them here or there.
I do not like them anywhere.
I do not like them, Sam-I-am.
I do not like men of Islam.

Would you? could you? in a car?
Let them in - here they are.

I would not, could not, in a car.

You may like them. You will see.
Living in our land, rent-free.

I cannot stand them here rent-free.
Nor in a car! You let me be.
I do not like them in a mosque.
I do not like them 'round a box.
I do not like them in Berlin.
I care not if they have foreskin.
I do not like them here or there.
I do not like them anywhere.
I do not like them, Sam-I-am.
I do not like men of Islam.

A plane! A train! A plane! A train!
Could you, would you on a train?

Not on plane! not on train!
Not in a car! Sam! Let me be!
I do not like them in a mosque.
I do not like them 'round a box.
I do not like them in Berlin.
I care not if they have foreskin.
I do not like them here or there.
I do not like them anywhere.
I do not like them, Sam-I-am.
I do not like men of Islam.

So if a tourist from the US does something similar next week should the EU ban all American tourists? There's more of us entering Europe every year than the entire Arab population of the continent.

Do American tourists consume taxes on net, disproportionately commit sexual and violent crime, turn neighborhoods into no-go zones, and leave behind another generation of themselves to do largely the same? Or do they mostly just stimulate and support local economies with their relatively large disposable incomes and bounce?

So if a tourist from the US does something similar next week should the EU ban all American tourists?

I live in a small town, and somehow found myself sharing a rented office with 2 Californians. Quite frankly my opinion on the matter is: why wait?

There's more of us entering Europe every year than the entire Arab population of the continent.

Are you sure this is making the argument you want to make, given that precisely zero of these attacks were committed by American tourists, despite such high traffic?

If your argument is that absolutely no immigration should be permitted because there exists the possibility that the immigrant will commit a crime against the native population in the future, that should logically extend to white Europeans immigrating between European countries. As I said downthread, quite a few young English girls would have been spared rape and murder had the UK never permitted entry to Polish citizens. And though the history has been sanctified through assimilation, the passage of time, and Hollywood, German, Irish, and yes, Jewish, immigration to the US at the end of the 19th century brought with it significant violence against the "native" Anglo population, perhaps even a greater degree of violence per capita than that committed by non-white doctors in Germany.

Sometimes (often) someone really wants to post about how much they despise blacks/Arabs/Indians/Jews/women/gays whoever.

We have spent a lot of time trying to enforce the rules in a way that suits the community's desire for maximal freedom of expression without descending into unfiltered sneering, snarling, race-baiting, and lazy booing of whichever group someone happens to hate.

You can talk about how blacks commit statistically more crimes, per crime statistics, and you can talk about the prevalence of Indian scam rings, and you can even bring HBD into it to propose your theory of why this is genetic. You can argue that immigration is bad and you can say you want zero immigrants and 100% racially pure ethnostates. Those sorts of arguments are allowed and have been made.

"Arabs, blacks or are (sic) lazier and more violent" is not an argument. It's just a rank assertion about your outgroup.

"No immigration of such should be permitted."

Fine. Your opinion, you can say this.

"Indians lie and cheat more than whites. It's that simple."

This is just more lazy boo-outgrouping. Do Indians lie and cheat more than whites? Do they really? As a percentage of the total population of liars and cheaters? As a part of Indian culture? As a genetic predisposition? I mean, you could conceivably gesture in the direction of some kind of argument, but you don't even try, you just drop a bunch of "brown people bad" turds on the floor.

People with views very like yours, and probably even stronger than yours, are regular posters here and have figured out that we give plenty of latitude for culture warring about your least favorite ethnic groups and "race realism" HBD posting so long as you can be civil and minimally inflammatory about it, and by that we mean not presuming that you're in a white nationalist clubhouse and if any Arabs, blacks, or Indians happened to be sitting next to you you could just pop off about what a bunch of lazy criminal liars they all are.

All of that throat-clearing is because I know people will whine that we're silencing "badthink" or trying to enforce some kind of consensus on not hurting feelings, despite the plentiful, years-long evidence to the contrary. In the vain hopes that explaining why we act on posts such as this will prove educational and illustrative to other posters who want to assert similar sentiments but in a less shitty way.

Factoring into this also is that your record, in particular, is one of the worst on the Motte. I count eight warnings and three tempbans, all for this sort of casual slinging of lazy insults at whichever group gripes your goiters at the moment.

You're just a shitty, low-effort poster who contributes nothing of value. I can't honestly remember you ever posting anything interesting, insightful, or getting even a single AAQC nomination, or really, anything that wasn't... stuff like this, although usually not as bad, hence your longevity here despite being a constant low-level stink and not much more.

Because your last ban was for a week and you were told then we would start escalating, I am banning you for a month, and not permabanning you, despite my near-certainty that that's in the future.

The ban is justified. No argument there. This though -

You're just a shitty, low-effort poster who contributes nothing of value. I can't honestly remember you ever posting anything interesting, insightful, or getting even a single AAQC nomination, or really, anything that wasn't... stuff like this, although usually not as bad, hence your longevity here despite being a constant low-level stink and not much more.

This is a stupid thing to say and unworthy of someone here to enforce and demonstrate correct behaviour. I'd say you went way overboard, although if this is the new level of discourse around here I would be happy to say more.

You know, that was pretty harsh and I probably should have edited that last part more heavily.

That said, I meant every word, and in the past, curt mod comments like "Don't boo your outgroup like this" get people demanding to know why we're enforcing ideological conformity and why someone got banned just for Telling The Truth. @No_one is a (not quite uniquely, but in a very small group) bad poster who wants to use the Motte as his platform to talk about how much he hates other people. But you're right, it wasn't the best way to express it.

No, its not that simple. Even granting your premise arguendo, they are still human beings, made according to the Imago Dei.

All human beings have equal dignity. It is no lesser tragedy for Nigerians or Congolese to be massacred than for Norwegians or Irishmen.

That being said, the distribution of natural gifts among different groups is not equal, and it must be admitted that Europeans get the better split compared to Bantus or Arabs. It is perfectly reasonable to oppose immigration from the Congo or Iraq on the basis that these people will lower the average abilities of an individual in your country, and this is not based in hatred of Congolese or Iraqis.

and this is not based in hatred of Congolese or Iraqis.

No, but it is based in indifference, and with regard to the horrors visited upon many, many, innocent people throughout history, the space between 'indifference' and 'hatred' would take an electron microscope to measure.

When an elephant stands on the tail of a mouse, it is no solace to the mouse that you do not hate him but are indifferent to him.

True, but screening people becomes somewhat easier if you limit the number of people coming in. If you’re taking in only about 10,000 you can be pretty sure that the background checks will show criminality, drug use, lack of language skills, troubling political or religious beliefs, and so on. If it’s 100,000 it’s plausible to find things that would show up in a very quick background check, but more will slip by. At 1,000,000 a year, you’ll barely have any idea who these people are or why they’re coming.

And on the tail end, having fewer immigrants means better assimilation because the newcomers must learn the language and culture due to a lack of an ethnic enclave where he doesn’t have to adapt to the language and culture. If a million Swedes moved to the USA, they’d form a Swedish enclave in which Swedish is spoken, people go to the local Swedish Lutheran Church, they all eat Swedish food (Swedish pancakes and meatballs I assume), and so on. This happened in the past (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lindsborg,_Kansas) and obviously with groups like Orthodox Jews in New York who still speak Yiddish. Sonnet or later you are taking in so many people from a given background so fast that you simply cannot get them integrated and assimilated at all.

There's a difference between not wanting "low human capital people" (as the kids say these days) to come lower the average quality of life in your town/city/country, and, say, proposing grinding up all the Congolese into Soylent Green while telling them it's nothing personal. No microscope required, it's quite visible with the naked eye. In fact you'd almost have to be trying not to see it.

The difference is one of degree, not kind. The former is less bad than the latter, but they both come from the same malignant well: the belief that the well-being of Mtumbe Ngoube from Kinshasa or Fulan al-Fulani from Karbala matters less than that of John Doe from Kansas City or Max Mustermann from Koln.

There is a story told of Churchill, that he asked some lady

Churchill: "Madam, would you sleep with me for five million pounds?"

Socialite: "My goodness, Mr. Churchill... Well, I suppose... we would have to discuss terms, of course... "

Churchill: "Would you sleep with me for five pounds?"

Socialite: "Mr. Churchill, what kind of woman do you think I am?!"

Churchill: "Madam, we've already established that. Now we are haggling about the price.

Wanting to kill people and not wanting them near you is a difference in kind, or there is no distinction between differences in kind and differences in degree.

You've butchered the story -- the woman has to actually agree for it to work. But even in the valid version, there's a difference between being a whore and being a cheap whore.

It’s a fun story but it’s actually pretty dumb. There is probably an amount of money that even Elon Musk would suck a dick for, and even if we’re talking about people who don’t desire money, there’s every chance there’s something (health, physical fitness, the resurrection of a loved one, the chance to have children, world peace, a tripling of their beloved dog’s lifespan) they would degrade themselves to have. Churchill himself was surely no different.

It’s a fun story but it’s actually pretty dumb. There is probably an amount of money that even Elon Musk would suck a dick for,

There are some things which most people will not do for money, or anything else short of a credible threat of death or hideous pain. In cultures influenced by Abrahamic religion, a straight man sucking dick is one of them. It isn't just a sin - it's an abomination. (Leviticus, passim)

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Your logic is tortured and deliberately ignores the point.

Yes, the Ellis islanders brought violence and crime, and if we were smart we'd recognize that and avoid the mistakes of the past.

Some commentators, such as Keith Woods, are taking the position that this proves that all Arab immigration to Europe should be cut off, because even the apparently liberal/assimilated ones are still ticking time bombs of potential violence; this seems fairly tendentious even to me, given what we know about the guy so far.

My position is not quite that, but not too far from it. If we take the story that this is about his anti-Islam grievances at face value, it seems to me that it's an example of how importing people from places that have ethnic and religious conflicts that Westerners don't even understand results in importing their conflicts along with them. See also, the disputes with Sikh violence that have stirred up India-Canada tensions. I don't want Muslim immigrants from Saudi Arabia and I don't want anti-Muslim immigrants from Saudi Arabia in my country. I don't want to think about Saudi Islam anymore than strictly necessary for international relations. There are enough domestic tensions without needing to add Saudi conflicts to Germany.

it seems to me that it's an example of how importing people from places that have ethnic and religious conflicts that Westerners don't even understand results in importing their conflicts along with them.

Actually, I think the conflict in this case is easy for Westerners to understand. He was pro-Israel and anti-Islam; thus, his conflict was with most of his fellow co-ethnics. Had he not had what is likely a psychotic break, he would have spent the rest of his life in Germany feeling very at home among the right-wing and welcomed into their circles.

I don't want Muslim immigrants from Saudi Arabia and I don't want anti-Muslim immigrants from Saudi Arabia in my country.

What about a non-Muslim politically neutral immigrant from Saudi Arabia? I understand the sentiment, but there's probably very little crime committed by doctors and other professionals from foreign backgrounds, including Saudi Arabian citizens, in Germany. And a logically consistent position would outlaw basically all immigration so that we avoid, to focus on the UK for a moment, poles killing English girls, Scots doing the same thing, and so on. Stories of Poles misbehaving in the UK have largely disappeared over the years, but it was a very big thing in the early 2000s and there were quite a few disturbing stories from the English countryside during that time.

Edit: I'm asking this in good faith and out of genuine interest as someone who recently started reading posts here, but why exactly was my comment downvoted and the the comment I responded to upvoted? Straightforwardly, this story is not like the way Walterodim described it, and the comment itself has very little substance: he doesn't want any Saudi immigrants in whatever country he lives in. Maybe my comment wasn't particularly thoughtful (I thought it was ok), but I don't see why it warranted downvotes.

He attacked a Christmas market, does it matter if he secretly supports AFD? If he wasn't brought to Germany he wouldn't have committed this act. It really is easy for the right to portray it favorable terms. It is also gives leftists the opportunity to frame this of course in a manner that tries to deflect from it. I have seen both.

According to Keith woods he was a zionist leftist who wanted more muslim migration that commited this act because Germany is not doing enough to give asylum from Saudi Arabia.

If that is correct then this is a leftist but not Islamic, pro migration terrorism act. Exactly the opposite that is claimed bellow. If of course it is true.

Edit: Woods quotes the terrorist in 2023 saying that he will make the German nation pay the price of the crimes committed by the goverment against Saudi refugees. He also says that he will take revenge even if it costs him his life. https://x.com/KeithWoodsYT/status/1870428721632481719?t=TeBZdhjRJUJdWKMBMS-5nQ&amp%3Bs=19

It is certainly correct to limit people like this guy from coming to one's country.

Moreover, it seems almost everyone forgets that the biggest genocide commited by Muslims against Christians was not commited by the biggest muslim fanatics even though Islamism has been an element of this. I am talking about the genocide of Christians Greeks, Armenians, Assyrians, by the Muslim populations of Turkey. Of which secular Kemalists who also called for Jihad had been a core component as has been Turkish nationalism. The ethnic resentments of people like this, and not just any human capital problems is something that has been way too understated. A secular muslim might still carry both ethnic resentments related to his homeland or even the general Muslim population. Just like with other groups who aren't particularly religious but still are hostile foreigners.

According to Keith woods he was a zionist leftist who wanted more muslim migration that commited this act because Germany is not doing enough to give asylum from Saudi Arabia.

Edit: Woods quotes the terrorist in 2023 saying that he will make the German nation pay the price of the crimes committed by the goverment against Saudi refugees.

Look, I'm not interested in defending this guy, but this is misleading. Based on the political sentiments he expressed - anti-Islam and pro-Israel (basically in line with mainstream right-wing parties in the West) - he is not advocating for Muslim immigration; rather, he's upset that, in his view, Germany is not doing enough to protect apostates, Saudi women who want to escape the country, political dissidents, and similar types of people. I don't see how you can call him a leftist.

Being pro Israel isn't something that makes someone right wing. Much of the mainstream that pretends to be right wing is not right wing especially in a country like Germany and is in fact insufficiently pro their people to qualify as anything but extremists against their own civilization. Now technically it is possible to be a European nationalist who is unwisely fanatically Zionist. But being pro Israel is quite compatible with being a leftist extremist. Indeed most Jews that are organized politically and make the biggest mark through their influence (such as rich donors, the most prominent activists, and powerful figures) manage to combine Zionism, with Jewish nationalism and hostility against countries like Germany. We also see non Jews have this combo. At minimum it is insufficient to stop someone from being a leftist.

In this forum we have had various people argue for the very far left ideology that combines Jewish nationalism with arguing for the extinction of nations like Germany because the German, or white nations in general continuing to exist is somehow a threat to Jewish identity and Jews. Which is ridiculously hostile agenda against European nations on the ground of illegitimate excessive grievances and crybullying to the extreme. Making onerous demands for other nations destruction. This guy's Zionism was not an obstacle to his hatred of the German nation and his one sided ridiculous demands in favor of Saudi Arabian immigrants. Therefore you are trying to mislead here by claiming that his Zionism precludes him of leftism extremism when Israeli nationalism like his Saudi Arabian sympathies are perfectly compatible with an ideology of grievance against European nations.

Ultimately I would put Zionism more along the left in a European context than the right, or center, because of the association of the left with prioritizing other nations and the right with native nationalism. Else as it happened in practice, we get leftism with fake conservatives and right wingers calling themselves something different while giving the same.

The incompatibility of zionist movements with self respecting european nations is there when we consider how much zionism is associated with one sided demands and the fact that the prominent Zionist organizations are hostile to European nations, including their right of preservation, national sovereignty,self determination, independent foreign policy. The combo of people who are Zionists but want people to be loyal to Israel and not to their own nation and give preferential treatment to Israel and Jews that isn't provided to one's own nation including with censorship and cancel culture, is such a sufficiently dominant element of Zionist influence that it can't be disregarded.

Pro Muslim anti Zionism would also fit more within the left. Being anti Zionist is also insufficient to stop someone from being a leftist in a European context, of course since it is possible to hold other grudges, follow the anti european grievance ideology and even blame Israeli policies on European countries and wish for revenge, including one that is about migration replacement.

The Saudi Arabian refugees would be Muslims, no? If not, I would grant that he was pro migration of Arabs but not Muslims. But I am not sure that the Saudi Arabian women he wishes to be refugees would not include any Muslims. But that doesn't change his pro foreign identity anti German sentiments.

As for him being a leftist. As we have seen Zionism is not a get out of jail free card for leftist extremism and in fact some of the worst far left extremists, especially more establishment make their arguments from a Jewish nationalism perspective and are Zionists (though in Germany even the antifa is pro Israel IIRC). The ADL is the organization most representative of this but really it isn't rare whatsoever for people to combine Zionism with Anti European hostility and cry-bullying oppression narratives.

The guy is pro migration and he hates Germany for not doing enough for foreigners and refugees. That fits well enough within the left. You can't but call him a leftist when he is upset about that and he is motivated to commit a terrorist attack. If a German nationalist hated foreigners and committed an attack on foreign groups due to his hatred of said foreigners the result would be countless of people to label him a right winger or a far right. The left should be identified with hatred against European nations by foreigners and pro migration sentiments because that accurately captures a sufficiently pervasive characteristic of its ideology, even if most leftists wouldn't prefer it manifests in the way it did with this attack.

You are trying to square a circle here when claiming you can't call him a leftist and you are making a special pleading that much fewer would dare if some figure pattern matches as much for a right wing figure as this guy is a far left foreign terrorist. The left should act honorably and accept their problem of anti European extremism and how such people with such sentiments acting against Europeans fit within the left wing ideological perspective. They ought to moderate and abandon the ideology that disregards the interests and survival of European nations so this hostility it helps cultivate is no longer such common characteristic of the left wing agenda with predictable results not only here but others like Pakistani rape gangs. Not to mention he wouldn't be in Germany in the first place without the influence of left wing ideology. And remember the mainstream fake right of Merkel that has no problem with aligning with the other parts of the left and trying to stop any deviation from the anti-native dogma of the left are not blameless and outside the problem of anti-German pro foreign extremism.

Was this man actively “treating” patients while saying all this?

Good Lord.

I'm hearing that he was apparently angry about not enough being done for (presumably anti-Islamic) refugees:

https://x.com/banjawarn/status/1870393623210078601/photo/1

Too soon to be sure of course, there's no community notes or anything on this post. It does seem plausible, he was complaining about Sweden expelling this refugee.

https://x.com/DrTalebJawad

He retweets: Sweden wants to extradite me to Iraq to carry out the death sentence there and I will be killed in the most horrific ways.

He retweets: Civil Youth Gathering Meeting in Umayyad Square to Demand Civil System and Women’s Involvement in Public Life

Other people have been going on about him retweeting Israeli military posts, apparently he has Zionist sympathies. There's truly something for everyone with this guy. He seems like a nut.

But why couldn’t the AfD thing be the red herring itself? The entire thing makes literally zero sense. He’s an Arab Muslim committing a terrorist act because he doesn’t believe that Arab Muslims should be in Germany because they’ll commit terrorist acts, which he then did. The more plausible explanation is he’s an Islamic Jihadist who is either being misidentified as a supporter of AfD policies, or he was using that as a front to hide behind.

Or, uh, hear me out here, but the motivations of someone who committed mass murder don’t have to make sense, because he’s batshit insane.

How many cases have there been where an Islamic jihadist commits a terrorist attack and pretends to be something other than an Islamist while doing so? Being open that you are, in fact, doing jihad has always been one of the points of the jihadists.

He wasn’t tweeting while he was attacking. Those posts came beforehand. It might well have been a sort of cover story so those who are looking for Jihadists don’t look to hard at him. And Muhammad Atta was drinking late into the night before 9/11 despite alcohol being forbidden by Islam.

That just doesn't add up. Why would he engage in years of carefully constructing a cover story for doing this sort of an attract that seems highly impulsive? If it's important for the authorities to not find him then why does he conduct the one form of attack that almost guarantees to end up with him either dead or being hauled off to hospital and then interrogation? Isn't this rather a convoluted explanation in comparison to him simply being pretty much who he claims he is?

And Muhammad Atta was drinking late into the night before 9/11 despite alcohol being forbidden by Islam.

That's just being a sinner, not a cover story. Insofar as I've understood he believed martyrdom would wipe the record clean, so to say.

Sarah Adam’s is reporting that Hamsa Bin Laden is now commander of an Islamic Army that brings Aq isis and other groups under one command. Accomplished through him marrying into influential Islamist families.

She also reports that he and they are now less concerned with getting credit for terror and more concerned with opsec and covert tactics.

She seems credible.

I guess we'll see if further details emerge. But to me this looks like someone utterly deranged, with no coherent plan at all. Maybe he had some recent health issue like Luigi, or maybe he cracked from the stress of working as a doctor for so long.

the position that this proves that all Arab immigration to Europe should be cut off, because even the apparently liberal/assimilated ones are still ticking time bombs of potential violence

Well, wignats will have a field day. (Maybe that was his objective?)

Certainly the more moderate right will find it uncomfortable. An educated, apostate Arab who's vehemently against the Islamification of Europe -- well, if Germany is anything like the USA, he'd be held up as one of the "good ones" and a solid ally. (The moderate right is of course desperate to latch onto any token PoC so they can assert that they're not racist!)

I don't think you can quite square this circle without accepting an ethnonationalist framing, so I expect this to be swept under the rug. It looks bad for Arabs, obviously bad for the pro-immigration left, bad for the moderate right; the only people who can point to this incident as confirming their priors are the ones saying these immigrants are fundamentally incompatible with Western civilization by virtue of their ethnicity, regardless of their professed views.

Assuming this wasn't some 4D double layered false flag: https://x.com/stillgray/status/1870306075695546383 (this reads like premium copium to me, but, I guess it's not impossible.)

on the other hand, his support for the AfD and his criticism of Muslim immigration makes him pretty much impossible to use as a cudgel by the right wing.

It seems the attacker was only a critic of Muslim immigration on unusually principled anti-religious grounds. Here he is in 2019 (fedora and all -- wow!) discussing his website for aiding the asylum claims from secular Gulf refugees. More recently, he accused the German state of conspiring against atheist Saudi asylees and threatened to fight and kill over this:

First: I assure you that if Germany wants a war, we will fight it. If Germany wants to kill us, we will slaughter them, die, or go to prison with pride. Because we have exhausted all peaceful means and all we have received from the police, state security, the prosecution, the judiciary, and the (Federal) Ministry of the Interior is more crimes against us. Peace is of no use with them.

Rather than the hard right, it will be assimilationist centrists and center-rightists who want to make the problem of immigration to be about Islam who won't have much to milk out of this.

Yes, excellent analysis. Thanks for laying out exactly what I was thinking in such agreeable prose.

There was a similar attack like this in Germany a few years ago. An Iranian Muslim born in Germany became radicalized about mass immigration into Germany and committed a mass shooting targeting immigrants. It’s barely remembered now because the story got dropped like a hot potato, since it would have been extremely difficult for either side of the culture war to make hay out of it.

The terrorist has claimed in December 2023 that he will make the German nation pay the price for the crimes committed by its goverment against Saudi refugees. He also said in the quoted post that Woods Therefore this looks like a leftist terrorist attack of a Saudi Arab who sympathizes so much with Saudi Arabians that he wants to harm the nation of Germany.

https://x.com/KeithWoodsYT/status/1870428721632481719?t=TeBZdhjRJUJdWKMBMS-5nQ&amp%3Bs=19

So it would be exactly the opposite as the anti immigration narrative and really this should had been the more likely theory rather than him playing 5 dimensional chess.

Toxoplasma quotient counterintuitively low.

What's the opposite of a scissor statement?

A null statement?

staple statement

Opposite along a different axis.

A scissor statement is seized-upon by multiple actors with conflicting interpretations.

A statement like "atheist muslim converts hates islam" is ignored by all actors as it there are no interpretations that are convenient for their positions.

Perhaps he thought ramming innocents at a Christmas market was the best way to advance his warnings

“Be the change you want to warn against”

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