zenpundit.com

[ by Charles Cameron — the elements speak Power to power]
.

Images speak louder than words: the right images cut to the heart. Billions of dollars extinguished in freak storms also speak.

It may be that some of those who have been denying global warming are about ready to — reluctantly — take it sweriously as a matter for stragetic gaming.

Realism from Miami’s mayor:

As Hurricane Irma forces millions to evacuate, Mayor Tomás Regalado says: “If this isn’t climate change, I don’t know what is.”

Oh, and Rush Limbaugh

Rush Limbaugh indicates he’s evacuating Palm Beach days after suggesting Hurricane Irma is fake news:

Image:

Oh no, that’s not Diwali, the Hindu Festival of Lights, nor is it the apocalypse, just a foretaste. It’s a photo of California burning.

Mother Nature speaks in water, wind and fire. First responders can respond, up to a point. Funding is crucial.

Hey. Job would understand:

At this also my heart trembleth, and is moved out of his place. Hear attentively the noise of his voice, and the sound that goeth out of his mouth. He directeth it under the whole heaven, and his lightning unto the ends of the earth. After it a voice roareth: he thundereth with the voice of his excellency; and he will not stay them when his voice is heard. God thundereth marvellously with his voice; great things doeth he, which we cannot comprehend. For he saith to the snow, Be thou on the earth; likewise to the small rain, and to the great rain of his strength.

Humbled yet? Is this the time for a few minds to change?

Hurricanes don’t lie. The earth is now under attack from water, wind and fire.

To see this in the microcosm, take a look at Rohingya, by water and fire — Upshortly

Oh, ah, dark hell by Hieronymous Bosch

:

That’s Judgment Day— how many signs — accelerando & crescendo — you wanna see?

Thank you. Out.

[ by Charles Cameron — score one for quantitative, links-based analysis ]
.

It’s not so surprising that JM Berger‘s exploration of concepts in IS propaganda notes first that the title of al-Mujahir‘s speech which he will be digging into in greater detail — “Be Patient, For Indeed the Promise of God is Truth” — is a Quranic reference, then turns to the same root concepts — first tawhid, and then al wala’ wal bara’ —

The first is tawhid, or monotheism, a belief in the indivisible oneness of God, which can be extrapolated into a “rejection of legal, class, social, political, racial, national, territorial, genetic, and economic distinctions” and general political unity among Muslims. Importantly, this concept provides a divine mandate linking the Eligible InGroup to the Extremist In-Group.

The second concept is wala and bara (loyalty and enmity), which functions “as a tool of ‘in-group’ control”, which is broadly interpreted by jihadists to mean that Muslims are required to stand together loyally (wala) and fight outsider and outside influences (bara), across spiritual, emotional and physical dimensions.

— that Joas Wagemaker and others have found cento jihadist thought:

Notably, the concept of al-wala’wal-bara’ was taken a step further by a Hanbali scholar, Hamd ibn ‘Ali ibn ‘Atiq (d. 1883), who, as Joas Wagemakers perceptively observed, connected al-wala’ wal-bara’ with the concept that can be seen as the very basis of Islam, the unity of God (tawhid). In other words, a Muslim cannot profess his belief in tawhid, and by extension Islam, if he does not demonstrate his enmity toward non-Muslims. Moreover, ibn ‘Atiq used Qur’anic verses, in particular Surat 60:4, to uphold the necessity of expressing bara’. The trend that ‘Atiq established by binding al-wala’ wal-bara’ to the foundation of Islam continued into the twentieth century, where it was taken up in Saudi Arabia by religious scholars who supported or opposed the Saudi rulers.

— Robert Rabil, Salafism in Lebanon: From Apoliticism to Transnational Jihadism

Wagemakers ties this conjunction of tawhid with al-wala’ wal-bara’ to Juhayman al-‘Utaybi, and thence back to al-Faraj and forward again to al-Maqdisi. Al-‘Utaybi’s Mahdist occupation of the Grand Mosque in Mecca on the first day of the current Islamic century should be viewed as the founding moment for the movement of Salafist jihad leading directly to ISIS’ proclamation of the caliphate.

**

It is when the quantitative, “linkage-based” conceptual analysis kicks in —

— that the power of the digital approach makes itself clear.

Here we have dozens of phrases linked to beliefs, traits, and practices, which are susceptible of manipulation for counter-messaging — in a way which picks on the weak points in existing jihadist propaganda. This JM achieves by comparing al-Mujahir’s recent speech with al Adnani‘s 2011 “The Islamic State Will Remain Safe”.

In al-Adnani, grandiose predictions; in al-Mujahir, more realistic appraisal, six years later. In the gap, potential for illustrating IS’ failure to live up to its promises over that six year period.

JM’s approach, utilizing the prior work of his ICCT colleagues Haroro Ingram, gets into the weeds, into the detail, in a way that theologically-minded scholars have not.

For the Quant side, a distinct win.

[ by Charles Cameron — humming along as the world sings ]
.

It’s not as though I’m the one who noticed the Trump Truman correspondence — it’s laid out, with some other worthwhile quotes, in the New Yorker piece, Donald Trump’s Nuclear War Threat:

And it does have something of an apocalyptic ring to it, as does Truman’s remark, which he slipped in like a knife between Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

**

All of which reminds me of two invasions of Iraq, a century apart:

Nothing apocalyptic there — unless you think of Baghdad in the same breath as Babylon — which Saddam likely did.

[ by Charles Cameron — a catch-up post ]
.

Despite his modest comments to the contrary, David Ronfeldt has in fact been posting up a storm on his Materials for Two Theories blog, bringing us up to date with his readings on tribalism as the key aspect of his TIMN (tribes, hierarchical institutions, markets, and networks) theory.

Just as I keep harping on the significance of — and our tendency to overlook — religious and particularly apocalyptic drivers across a range of problematic issues, so David relentlessly points to the significance of — and our tendency to overlook — tribalism as a key form in understanding many of those same issues.

**

Most recent:

David’s two most recent posts are of particular interest.

#14: Richard Landes’s “How Thinking Right Can Save the Left” (2015)

Richard Landes, in addition to his encyclopedic work on apocalyptic matters, is the proponent of a game theoretical approach to the Israeli-Pakestinian question with considerable overlap with David’s focus on tribalism — regarding the core issue as that of a clash between zero-sum and win-win players, in which concessions made by the win-win player, in expectation of reciprocal concessions, are taken as victories, requiring no re ciprocation, by the zero-sum player.

I hope I got that right, albeit in very simplified / condensed form

#15: Mark Weiner’s “The call of the clan: why ancient kinship and tribal affiliation still matter in a world of global geopolitics” (2013)

Mark Weiner‘s entry is the one which comes closest to David’s TIMN work, and David accordingly uses parallels as a means of outside confirmation of certain of his own insights.

**

The full monte:

Here, for your convenience, are David’s recent tribalism posts — some items deal specifically with America, one with Britain, and others are more general, but I have grouped them all together in the order of posting since David issued them as a numbered series:

Intro and #1: Sabrina Tavernise, “One country, two tribes” (2017)

#2: David Roberts, “Donald Trump and the rise of tribal epistemology” (2017

#3: Daniel Shapiro, “Modern tribes – the new lines of loyalty” (2008)

#4: Charlie Sykes, “Where the Right Went Wrong” (2016)

#5: Ben Shapiro, “The Revenge of Tribalism” (2016)

#6: Robert Reich, “The New Tribalism and the Decline of the Nation State” (2014)

#7: Glenn Harlan Reynolds, “Politicians benefit from American tribal warfare” (2014)

#8: Jonathan Haidt & Ravi Iyer, “How to Get Beyond Our Tribal Politics” (2016)

#9: Deepak Chopra, “After Trump, What Will It Take To Heal?” (2016)

#10: Jalaja Bonheim, “Why We Love Trump” (2016)

#11: NeoTribes, “NeoTribal Emergence” (2016)

#12: Ross Douthat, “The Myth of Cosmopolitanism” (2016)

#13: Kenan Malik, “Britain’s Dangerous New Tribalism” (2015)

#14: Richard Landes’s “How Thinking Right Can Save the Left” (2015)

#15: Mark Weiner’s “The call of the clan: why ancient kinship and tribal affiliation still matter in a world of global geopolitics” (2013)

[ by Charles Cameron — by analogy with the curious incident of the dog in the night-time ]
.

From Sir Arthur Conan Doyle‘s story, Silver Blaze, in the Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes:

Inspector Gregory: “The dog did nothing in the night-time.”

Sherlock HHolmes: “That was the curious incident.”

**

There have been reports for some time that Hamas was preparing a revision of its original Charter, and now the Hamas Document of general Principles & Policies is with us:

The full text is here.

**

‘There’s commentary aplenty elsewhere —

Juan Cole, Hamas in new charter accepts 1967 borders for Palestinian state

Gatetone Institute, Hamas in new charter accepts 1967 borders for Palestinian state

Al-Monitor, What will Hamas charter change mean for Israel?

The Guardian, Hamas presents new charter accepting a Palestine based on 1967 borders

Middle East Eye, Hamas recognises PLO as ‘national framework’ for Palestinians

Al-Jazeera, Hamas accepts Palestinian state with 1967 borders

Brookings, Is Hamas re-branding to orient towards Egypt?

— I have just one point to make.. which I don’t believe any of thre above so much as mention..
**

The original 1988 Hamas Charter contains an explicitly apocalyptic hadith in Article Seven:

the Islamic Resistance Movement aspires to the realisation of Allah’s promise, no matter how long that should take. The Prophet, Allah bless him and grant him salvation, has said:

“The Day of Judgement will not come about until Moslems fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Moslems, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him. Only the Gharkad tree, (evidently a certain kind of tree) would not do that because it is one of the trees of the Jews.” (related by al-Bukhari and Moslem).

That hadoth is no longer present in the new Document of General Principles & Policies.

**

The most extensive account of the gharqad tree I’ve seen is in Anne Marie Oliver & Paul Steinberg, The Road to Martyr’s Square..

the bizarre tree called the Gharqad, traditionally believed to speak in oracles and said to grow in the graveyards of Mecca

Their account is fascinating, well wporth reaing in full — see pp 19-24 at this link for convenience.

**

I amn uncertain whether Hamas has officially stated that the new Document of Principles replaces the original Charter, although that’s the impression one gathers from the rumors preceding its publication — but to the extent that it does, it is significant that the dog no longer barks, the Gharqad tree hadith no longer features in the new text.

Significantly omitting the hadith, the new Document lacks the specifically apocalyptic, end times claim present in the Charter. The hadoth, of course, continues to exist — bin Laden was another who used to quote it –mbut at least in its central doctrinal document, Hamas seems to have shited from an explicitly apoca;lyptic Islamism to a more general position opposing the “Zionist entity”.

To the extent that that’s a noteworthy shift, it’s at least a rhetorical de-escalation.

**

I look forward to any comments on this omission from Richard Landes, Will McCants, Jean-Pierre Filiu, Matthew Levitt, Aaron Zelin, Ibn Siqilli, Tim Furnish, Anne Marie Oliver, Paul Steinberg and others..