First, I'll answer your question simply: Islam.

Second, how many Muslims do you know directly who have blown themselves up/hacked off their heads/set fire to you? This is the problem I was trying to explain to you Danny, you can accept that radical Islam is a problem AND not tar all Muslims with the same brush. Less than 0.1% of British Muslims have gone out to join IS, thus to make any assumptions on the faith in general is absolutely f*cking nuts.

Why are Muslims more impressionable to extremism? As I said, I don't know for certain, but my guess would be they see comments like yours, where there is an implicit conflation of all Muslims with their radical terrorist associates and they feel like this country doesn't accept them. Why aren't we focusing on the thousands of Muslims in this country who dedicate their lives to helping people, or the millions who give to charity?

I am not aware of having pretended anything.

We got involved in this discussion because of points I was trying to make generally about somewhat more than degrees of punishment for engaging in gay sex.There is,of course,a difference between a death sentence and life imprisonment in any context.But,if you want to advance a general argument about the "unique" attitude of "muslim" countries towards criminalisation and punishment of people for having gay sex, it is not the most convincing argument IMO for making "inherent" distinctions between Muslim countries" and "non muslim" countries to rely on a difference between giving people a life sentence as opposed to the death penalty,in terms of the general argument.

To compare what I'm saying to anti semitism here and in Nazi Germany doesn't stand up.If you want to make a comparator,it might be between giving people the "death penalty" in large numbers just for their religion as opposed to simply sending them to prison (sometimes potentially for life) for their religion.The comparison might be more akin to being gassed by the Nazis as opposed to being sent to prison by Stalin for a stretch.One is worse,though neither is desirable or capable of one lecturing the other too much about inherently superior morality,which is exactly one of my general points.

You are right,anti semitism here has not been remotely in either of those leagues though it has existed and anti-semitic attitudes are still around sometimes. Some people would even leave their locality if too many people of a different race,ethnicity or religion moved in. Jews tend to be of a different religion to such people,even perhaps ethnicity too.Some jews might even think a person who moved out because some jews moved in,could be a person harbouring anti-semitic feelings.They might feel that, were such a person to speak to them repeatedly about the "inherent" deficient morality of followers of Islam,it would be somewhat ironic.

You may disagree,and we are all entitled to our opinions.

Edited by legaleagle (19 Jun 2015 12.30am)

I think the Jewish community in the UK have been a great asset, as have the Indian community - in stark contrast to certain other communities. I would welcome them as neighbours, but of course still move if I found that the characteristic of the locality changed to such an extent that I would prefer to live elsewhere.

When did I say there are " 'inherent' deficient morality of followers of Islam ".

I have not talked about a " 'unique' attitude of 'muslim' countries towards criminalisation and punishment of people for having gay sex ", merely pointed out that anti-gay laws are much more severe in Muslim countries, why do you think that is?

The Spanish Civil War being a good example with British volunteers (many likely young) fighting on both sides.As well as the famous International Brigade fighting for the Republic, estimated at over 35,000, its estimated several thousand international volunteers (including British and Irish) volunteered to fight on Franco's side.Of the latter about 700 were from Ireland,seeing one of their prime purposes as the defence of Catholicism.

Edited by legaleagle (19 Jun 2015 10.59am)

They aren't, its more that in a current generation the only really active, popular form of extremism is Islamist movements. The problem isn't really anything to do with Muslims being more prone to extremism, but that young people are.

In previous generations, it was more far left and far right groups, all of which had their terrorist components, from the NF / Combat 18 through to the Angry Brigade, Class War and Baader Meinhof gangs, to the Provos and the UVF, one thing in common was the appeal to young men (primarily) and young women. Look at any revolution, and you'll find cadres of young men and women at the fore (even the armed and police services tends towards the recruitment of young men and women); and this is because young people are very prone towards idealism, over cynicism: they want to make a difference.

Many muslim countries have been in a situation in our lifetimes of national liberation from colonial powers, and suffering from corrupt regimes (usually after national liberation) and this has fuelled a large number of movements of Muslims that were politically active and involved in armed struggles, and that tradition has continued on. During the 60s to early 80s, these were typically leftist movements, but the 80s saw the rise of Islamist movements (spurned on initially by the success of the Iranian Revolution, and then the defeat of the Soviet in Afghanistan).

Consequently, that tradition of insurgency, continued into Chechnya, Palestine, Lebanon, Bosnia etc through the 90s, and saw the rise of groups such as Al-Qaeda etc bringing an ideological connection between those groups and other muslims populations, ultimately resulting in the idea of the international Jihadist, from Afghanistan in the 80s, to an grobal icon, a kind of Che Guevera for Islam.

But its not just Muslims that are 'vulnerable' to this idealism, its a phenomena of young people, who are drawn to 'dramatic causes', and then from those dramatic causes into extremism.

There really aren't that many of them, I guess, and they're not recruiting. Of course in the 70s, young people were joining Baader-Meinhoff, the IRA, UVF, ETA, the black brigades, who were all well involved in the killing of people.

I don't think its so much vulnerable and easily led, but a general fact of life that young adults are prone towards a idealistic and antagonistic view of the world, and a desire to change it. Its the folly of youth, and been going on for centauries. Its a thing people tend to fall into when young, extreme politics, and then extremist politics after wards

Its worth noting both of those two doctors came from Jordan, a country with a very long history of Islamist and Secular terrorism (back as far as the early PLO).

The actual numbers joining IS etc aren't very high as a percentage of the population, but at present if your, young, angry and muslim, there exists an entire network of organisations that are very well structured to benefit from that (largely thanks to the work of Al-Qaeda during the late 80s and throughout the 90s).

No mistake, groups like IS aren't so much exploiting these people, as making a use of them, in the same way that organisations and states down the centauries have done.