Interesting Take

 https://x.com/danburmawy/status/2079030535226003468?s=51&t=cLq01Oy84YkmYPZ-URIMYw

 The Western mind, after centuries of moving away from barbarity and cruelty, can no longer comprehend evil without attaching a tangible cause to it. When a mass shooter opens fire, the default assumption is that he must be mentally ill. When rebels take up arms, the explanation is that they must be oppressed. Violence is never seen as an end in itself, it is always framed as a reaction to something external, something rational, something the West can diagnose and fix. That is why Hamas and other terrorist organizations are so disorienting to the Western imagination. Their actions are too grotesque, too irrational, to fit neatly into Western categories of cause and effect. So Westerners scramble for explanations they can live with: “occupation,” “colonization,” “oppression.” They manufacture a tangible reason that makes sense to them, even if it has little to do with the truth. But if we look at history, cruelty has never required a tangible reason. Entire empires conquered, enslaved, and slaughtered not out of desperation or defense, but simply because they could. Vikings did not need oppression to justify raiding monasteries and enslaving villagers. Mongols did not need colonization to rationalize leveling entire cities and piling up skulls. The Aztecs did not need occupation to demand thousands of human sacrifices every year. The idea that cruelty must always have a logical, material cause is a uniquely modern, uniquely Western invention. Islamic terrorism does not operate by those rules. The engine behind jihad is not material grievance, it is spiritual ambition. The reason is not socioeconomic oppression, it is theological conviction. The suicide bomber is not trying to relieve poverty; he is trying to buy salvation. The jihadist who slits throats on video is not traumatized; he is reenacting Muhammad’s example, convinced that every drop of blood shed brings him closer to paradise. Jihad is not a cry for help. It is not the desperate rebellion of the oppressed. It is a religious performance, a soteriological act, a path to redemption."