Some Isreali/Palestinian outfit (memri) have claimed it for Hamas.
Reuters are calling it for Hamas too, via an anonymous source.
It certainly wouldn't be out of character for Hamas, who have repeatedly shown themselves to be murderous shitbags.
It just looks like a post office shooting to me... and I'll post a full apology tomorrow if I'm wrong.
Rodent - to predict something is often to hope something. Do you mean you would prefer it was a lone nutter scumbag rather than someone primed for the task by a scumbag organisation or movement?
Confusion abounds as to whether Hamas or another org were behind it, but I think your analysis of someone angry with his plight is correct regardless
Grauniad reports today that it doesn't seem he had any official links with any group.
I don't think an apology will be needed, you'll just need to amend the post to
some lone guy taking the hump with the world he lived in, joining Hamas, then shooting it up
Do you mean you would prefer it was a lone nutter scumbag...?
Not really - I don't see how that would be "better" for anyone than the other option. If the Israeli cops find a confession letter saying he did it because his dog told him to, will that fundamentally change anyone's opinions on it, or alter the reality of the conflict?
I only mention it because I hadn't seen anyone else point it out, and still haven't. Ever since I read Mark Ames' book on rage massacres I've been paying attention to this kind of thing to see how his theories pan out - this looks like a textbook case of the employee Going Postal.
One bloke walks into the place he works armed with machine gun and moves systematically through the building shooting everyone he encounters?
If that had happened in Dogdick, Alabama, us Brits would be rolling our eyes about the crazy Americans and their gun laws like we always do.
Incidentally, I notice no credible group has come forward to claim responsibility yet.
“If the Israeli cops find a confession letter saying he did it because his dog told him to, will that fundamentally change anyone's opinions on it, or alter the reality of the conflict?”
I think it would make a difference. If Dunblane had been carried out by eg the IRA rather than some lone crazy wouldn’t that have had ramifications? I was in the USA shortly afterwards and people were talking to us about it. If it had been the IRA it might have made the Irish Diaspora less inclined to shell out for Noraid.
Similarly this attack could have been Hamas, could have been Hezbollah, will no doubt be described as carried out by Mossad to discredit Hamas/Hezbollah, or by the CIA ditto, or by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard or what have you. If it’s provable as being by Hamas, it may change some people’s opinions and willingness to support them. It could be an atrocity too far.
As for the Virginia Tech style killings, someone has just told me that all the instances of it the guys doing the killing were each and everyone on anti-depressants. But he had a thing about the pharmaceutical industry.
That may well be so, but it's hardly going to calm down any of the participants, is it? That's what's ultimately important, and if I turn out to be right I doubt the news will change anyone's opinion.
I'm asking, what possible reason would I have for preferring to think of this as a post office-style attack? I've said that because it looks exactly like one to me, and that's it.
BTW, attaching a lot of importance to whether British people "support" any of the various factions - write positive blog posts about, as I understand - seems to me pretty peripheral, and not a little egotistical. However the conflict is resolved, I doubt it's going to hinge upon the opinions of a gaggle of Brits who find Middle East politics far more exciting than their own.
...all the instances of it the guys doing the killing were each and everyone on anti-depressants.
Your acquaintance is misleading you, I'm afraid... Some were and some weren't. There's not much connecting the people who do this kind of thing, and believe me the FBI has tried to produce a standard profile.
I wasn’t thinking of British bloggers. By “supporters” I meant those that would be in a similar relationship to Hamas as Northern Irish nationalists or Irish sympathisers, or those of the Irish diaspora would be to the IRA. Excusing atrocities as unfortunate overkill in a worthy cause, or as a just retaliation.
Your last post that you did on the indy rage artist pointed out similarities between them and the 7/7 bombers. One of the similarities was the “pay attention to me” part of it, whereby the Virginia Tech bloke posted videos to news organisations, just as the 7/7 bombers left a video testament. Don’t know if anything has been found of that ilk with this last shooting.
Another point you made was that this kind of indy rage artist thing is a new phenomenon but his rage has the same root as murderous ideological and religious rage – which surely has been around in massacres and pogroms since human beings and tribes began.
It’s not something that can be proved but I would guess ideological and religious rage feels like righteous indignation, which can make you fearless and damn the consequences. You’re identifying with the cause and the group. Indy rage seems more like resentment – the same kind of emotion that has a bloke murder not just his errant wife but their children as well. It seems essentially solitary, or at most a folie a deux.
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