| ▲ | cakealert 13 hours ago |
| Iran never had the deterrent North Korea had. And by being a theocracy they heavily skewed any threat calculus against themselves. What they were doing, inching towards nukes, was a horrible move. In their position, you either sprint covertly and not play at all. I suspect that after their nuclear program was discovered and set back they fell victim to the sunk cost fallacy and convinced themselves they could repurpose it as leverage. But they are a theocratic regime and their messaging (whether genuine or not) made that a non-viable option in reality. This is probably what happens when your government isn't very competent and you don't have mathematicians doing game theoretic simulations for you? Theocracy with nukes screams nuke them first if you can't destroy their capability by other means. What happened today likely saved millions of Iranian lives. |
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| ▲ | epolanski 12 hours ago | parent | next [-] |
| > Iran never had the deterrent North Korea had. I feel very conflicted about what's happening. On one side it is clear that no country should give up their WMD projects. You lack that deterrent you get attacked, as simple as that. Libya, Syria, Iraq gave up their WMD projects eventually got bombed/attacked. > What happened today likely saved millions of Iranian lives. That's speculation. Since you name NK that's a clear example of a country having nuclear deterrent actually saving the region from a conflict. |
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| ▲ | margorczynski 11 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | > Libya, Syria, Iraq gave up their WMD projects eventually got bombed/attacked. This is the key. People talk some crazy stories about Iran being a theocratic state whose life mission is destroying Israel but the fact is they don't want to end up like Libya, Syria or any other country Israel considers a threat. And a reminder - Israel has illegals WMDs, using technology and nuclear material stolen from the US. So thinking Iran will simply nuke Israel because it has that capability is silly - it would mean mutual destruction. | | |
| ▲ | elcritch 10 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | > end up like Libya, Syria or any other country Israel considers a threat. You imply here that those countries woes are primarily due to Israel. They are not. Syria was embroiled and toppled by Islamic Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham backed by Turkey. Libya was due to civil war. Several of these conflicts were funded by Iran as well. You can go down the list. Please study at least some basics on the region. > So thinking Iran will simply nuke Israel because it has that capability is silly - it would mean mutual destruction. One would hope, but if Allah is protecting them why would they need to fear retaliation? Theocracies can be unpredictable. Also they could provide dirty bombs to their proxies in the region. | | |
| ▲ | ExoticPearTree 8 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Just to set the story straight: - Libya was bombed primarily by France and then other NATO countries for no good reason. And from a functioning dictatorship it is a failed state. - Syria was invaded by Turkey/US right after the civil war started. In the world we all live in you need to have powerful deterrents so that the US/France/UK/NATO will not dare to bomb you for whatever reason they feel "justified" to do. In an extreme, I think every country should have a lot of nukes so other countries can mind their own business. | | |
| ▲ | BrandoElFollito 7 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | > In an extreme, I think every country should have a lot of nukes so other countries can mind their own business. The problem is that countries tend to assume that the neighbors are also their business. | |
| ▲ | _old_dude_ 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > Libya was bombed primarily by France and then other NATO countries for no good reason https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alleged_Libyan_financing_in_th... | | | |
| ▲ | looofooo0 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Forget Ryssian involvment in Syria and Libiya! | | |
| ▲ | ExoticPearTree 7 hours ago | parent [-] | | I did not forget that. But the Russians banked on the opportunity after the fact. They did not bombed them because they did not like their leaders just because. |
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| ▲ | scotty79 7 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | > other countries can mind their own business Right. Because nothing says "I can mind my own business." like nuclear weapons being at most one coup from being launched at someone, possibly you. People thought nuclear weapons are a defensive deterrent but what war in Ukraine showed us they are actually offensive weapons that deter anyone from defending to strongly when you attack them with your conventional forces. Both russia and USA used their nuclear weapons in that manner for the last few decades. It's time to call the thing that quacks what it is, a duck. | | |
| ▲ | ExoticPearTree 7 hours ago | parent [-] | | > Right. Because nothing says "I can mind my own business." like nuclear weapons being at most one coup from being launched at someone, possibly you. You're saying not all countries should be able to have powerful weapons just because there might be a coup. Who decides that? You? Me? A random guy on the street? A random bureaucrat from a random country? There are very few people who think they can win a nuclear exchange. And somehow I don't think a random guy in Africa or the Middle East is so sure about it that it risks launching nukes at its neighbor(s). | | |
| ▲ | scotty79 an hour ago | parent [-] | | > You're saying not all countries should be able to have powerful weapons just because there might be a coup. Of course. How is that controversial? > Who decides that? You? Of course. I decide what I believe to be right. And in practice the countries that get to have nuclear weapons are the countries that got nuclear weapons. Not because they deserve it or should have it. Just because they got it. Which makes France, USA and Israel some of the countries that get to have nukes and Iran one of the countries that don't get to have nukes. > There are very few people who think they can win a nuclear exchange. You mistake humans for rational actors. Have you heard what the stance of russia is for example? "What's the use for the world if there's no russia in it." Basically if they can't do what they want, they think world deserves to get nuked into oblivion. |
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| ▲ | roenxi 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > You imply here that those countries woes are primarily due to Israel. They are not. The comment didn't suggest that exactly. > One would hope, but if Allah is protecting them why would they need to fear retaliation? Israel just launched a perfidious pre-emptive defence by assassinating a lot of their top military leadership. They've probably figured out retaliation is a possibility here - if this is Israel's defence when they aren't even being threatened, imagine what they will do in their defence when the Iranians actually do something directly! Even if the Iranians are legitimately stupid at some level the campaign of missile strikes must have registered that they are vulnerable to missiles. | | |
| ▲ | elcritch 9 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | That’s the point of my comment. Israel and several other nations like Syria, Lebanon, Yemen, etc have all been undergoing attacks by Iranian funded proxies for decades. | | |
| ▲ | ivape 8 hours ago | parent [-] | | Why do you think that’s true? You can take an average person globally and more or less realize it takes very little to make someone anti-Israeli foreign policy. It doesn’t take some large brainwashing operation. In fact, one could argue the propaganda is coming from a side that wants to paint a narrative that there is this huge operation against Israel when in reality an average 16 year old in America can spot the bad actor in a situation rather quickly (yes, that’s genz , the supposedly “brainwashed” dumbasses). Jews are a traumatized people. They can never truly shed the insecurity that entire continents and countries can be hostile toward them (the entirety of Europe during ww2). They are making trauma informed decisions, and can never be trusted to do so alone because it’s actual trauma. The biggest myth is that Israel is a first world country but there’s no evidence of it. Buildings and infrastructure do not make you a first world country (behold China). Any country that is that brutal will never meet the criteria, it’s a third world country that is new and learning just like every other third world country. Blood-thirst (blood-rage? They see red.) is an understatement when it comes to this country as of 2025. We need things to change over the next 20 years. They do not know how to manage life due to just how intense their historical trauma was. There’s no one over there with a cool head and clinically there wouldn’t be (how do you just act normal after the holocaust? You can’t.) The failure of the Trump admin is unique and unlike any other administration. It is was once accepted that Israel is not level headed (again, not an insult, one cannot be balanced if one emerges through hellfire) and cannot dictate foreign policy. Trump just said “fuck it, go ahead traumatized child, do as you please” - this was pure insanity. Love is protecting your brothers and sisters from themselves (my brothers keeper). The world did not get safer, where are the cooler heads in the room? | | |
| ▲ | 7 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | [deleted] | |
| ▲ | elcritch 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > Why do you think that’s true? You can take an average person globally and more or less realize it takes very little to make someone anti-Israeli foreign policy. It doesn’t take some large brainwashing operation. In fact, one could argue the propaganda is coming from a side that wants to paint a narrative that there is this huge operation against Israel when in reality an average 16 year old in America can spot villainy rather quickly. Because I lived there for 6 months during a study abroad I randomly ended up doing. I'd never had a Jewish or Muslim friend before going. Living there I had Palestinian and Jewish neighbors. I had to read lots of books on both sides of the topic and write papers on them. Along with deep conversations with both Israelis and Palestinians. Admittedly more with Israelis than Palestinians. Though I do have some fond memories of Palestinians. The experience forced me out of my previously much more sheltered technology and American centric world view which is what I'd say was your somewhat average 16 year old American's viewpoint, if on the more liberal atheistic side at the time. I likely would've been convinced of the same things as yourself when I was younger and more naive and saw the headlines I do now. That said, I'm not pro-Netanyahu or many of the things he does. He's a hardliner. > Jews are a traumatized people. They can never truly shed the insecurity that entire continents and countries can be hostile toward them (the entirety of Europe during ww2). You're not wrong. They're also a resilient people. Remember it's not just WWII, but most Israeli's, their parents and grand parents have also grown up with constant war or thread of war. It does affect psychology when many neighboring groups like Iran and Hamas not only want to destroy your state but also want to kill all Jews. That's their public official positions. It's not just rhetoric either as they routinely attack. Ultimately Palestinian leaders and political groups have never wanted peace with Israel from everything I've studied, and neither does Iran. Finally Israel was making progress towards peace with the Abraham accords (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham_Accords) which Trump helped negotiate. Some scholars I've read believe this is part of what led to Hamas's October 7th attacks as they would loose influence if Arab nations started making peace with Israel. > Bloodthirst is understatement when it comes to this country as of 2025. It's easy to throw such statements around. However, look at the state of most of the region. What Israel is doing is tame compared to some of the atrocities occurring but which don't make regular news. | | |
| ▲ | more-nitor 6 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | > What Israel is doing is tame compared to this. even though some Israel's actions are spooky (targeted-exploding walkytalkies?), they're at least designed to minimize civilian deaths (or at least they're trying) But... Iran and their ilks (eg. Hamas)? they not only don't give a shit, but actively seek to kill civilians with maximum brutality (baby beheadings, killing & parading even with non-israeli bodies) | | |
| ▲ | ivape 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | Can you explain to us what the genocide in Gaza is? I need a thorough explanation of the images I see out of there. What the hell is 50k dead and ghetto camp conditions? “Tame” Either you have no respect for my eyes or brain or I am truly an idiot. Write blog articles explaining how what we see and hear is bullshit and post it here please, we’ll assess. 1200 != 50,000 But here is the true mind fuck, 1200 != even one innocent. Barbaric != Tame So we march people down from the North to the South, level the area, and then logistically starve them? Tame. Do you know how the Americans marched the Native Americans to death? We’re all fucking idiots to you right? HN is just subset of society. You’ve got everyone here, including Israeli apologists. Plenty of Jewish developers too. You don’t have to live or die by your “team” when they are literally fucking wrong about this. Your typical educated American does not even attempt to defend most American policy since the end of WW2 (there’s literally not a single right thing America did). Maybe we’re lucky that we get to have such clear heads about it finally, and I hope the same for those on the wrong side of history on this one, however long it takes. When one realizes they were barbarically wrong is a true moment of personal and spiritual growth. The definition of modern national pragmatism appears to be the following based on what so many apologists say: 2 wrongs == 1 right (The only way this can be correct in anyone’s heart is if emotions have fully overtaken the person) Let me fix that for you: 2 wrongs != 1 right |
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| ▲ | 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | [deleted] |
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| ▲ | Ntrails 8 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | > Trump just said “do as you please” - this was pure insanity. I'm all for attacking Trump when justified, but given how Biden managed Gaza it is spectacularly unclear that we would expect a different outcome from Dems. | | |
| ▲ | ivape 8 hours ago | parent [-] | | We can’t know for sure since we’re not God. If Biden did what Trump did, then all that would solidify is that the Israeli lobby in America is hierarchically above both parties. I don’t think Biden would have done it. Take the moving of the US embassy to Jerusalem, which happened in Trump’s first term. What stable President agitates a situation like that? He was uniquely allied with Netanyahu for awhile, and Netanyahu has exclaimed that Trump is the best friend Israel ever had: https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/netanyahu-calls... | | |
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| ▲ | scotty79 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > Israel just launched a perfidious pre-emptive defence by assassinating a lot of their top military leadership. And Iran retaliated and actually some of it's missiles inflicted damage. We can only imagine what the damage would be if Isreal patiently waited for the Iran to feel read to attack Israel which it's always advertised as its goal. Also it already happened once. Nations of the region decided they are strong enough to attack Isreal and they did. It was bound to happen again and as the death toll in Isreal in the current conflict shows, despite pre-emptive strike damaging Iran's missile potential significantly, there's only so much you can do with defensive weapons. In this specific context pre-emptive strike on leaders and long range attack capabilities is not perfidious, it's just about the only thing you can do that's not stupid. | |
| ▲ | Qwertious 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | [flagged] | | | |
| ▲ | spwa4 10 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | "they [Israel] aren't even being threatened" Are you even arguing in good faith? Over the years: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Op9EFTPQhw8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ulXulltxXZg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V21yoWN_U3w https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hLDjGdJC0Q | | |
| ▲ | roenxi 9 hours ago | parent [-] | | One of those videos is literally titled "Iran's Ahmadinejad Keeps Up Bluster Against Israel" and another is about treaty negotiations. If countries are going to launch a military response every time a leadership figure starts blustering or negotiations don't go well we're going to be in a lot of wars. Bluster isn't a threat that the military are going to respond to. Imagine I used the word "credible" above if you want. | | |
| ▲ | sfn42 9 hours ago | parent [-] | | Iran and Israel were allies before Iran was taken over by religious leaders. Even after that, Israel tried to keep the peace hoping that reasonable people would take over again but they never did. Iran has been supplying and funding Hamas and other enemies of Israel for decades. In my mind there is no doubt who the good guys are in that particular conflict. Iran started it decades ago for no reason other than religious hate, has kept it up until now and Iran is the one escalating. | | |
| ▲ | mafuy 8 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Maybe most of this is true, I don't know. I got the impression that both their governments are total shit. But you'll certainly have to agree that most of the escalation is due to Israel's action (not words) in attacking first and at a large scale. | | | |
| ▲ | TheOtherHobbes 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Israel has also been funding Hamas and other enemies of Israel. https://www.timesofisrael.com/for-years-netanyahu-propped-up... Reality is Israel is run by psychopaths who would be in jail if it weren't for their their cynical use of constant war as a misdirection. Much like the US. And Russia. And numerous other countries, some of which are still pretending to be democratic. The entire world order is built on greed, lies, narcissistic grandiosity, and violent murder at industrial scales. | | |
| ▲ | nl 6 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | > Israel has also been funding Hamas and other enemies of Israel. That's not what this article says. To quote: > Thus, amid this bid to impair Abbas, Hamas was upgraded from a mere terror group to an organization with which Israel held indirect negotiations via Egypt, and one that was allowed to receive infusions of cash from abroad. > Hamas was also included in discussions about increasing the number of work permits Israel granted to Gazan laborers, which kept money flowing into Gaza, meaning food for families and the ability to purchase basic products. > Israeli officials said these permits, which allow Gazan laborers to earn higher salaries than they would in the enclave, were a powerful tool to help preserve calm. | | |
| ▲ | gitremote 6 hours ago | parent [-] | | The Times of Israel article's title is "For years, Netanyahu propped up Hamas. Now it’s blown up in our faces". The article's lede is "For years, the various governments led by Benjamin Netanyahu took an approach that divided power between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank — bringing Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to his knees while making moves that propped up the Hamas terror group." You are not understanding what the article is saying, because you're mixing up different Palestinians. Palestine has a left wing party, the Palestine Authority, and a right wing party, Hamas. The Palestinian Authority, led by Abbas, recognizes the state of Israel and wants a two-state solution that also establishes a Palestinian state. Hamas does not recognize the state of Israel and wants to destroy it. Netanyahu is against the Palestinian Authority because he's more against giving legitimacy to Palestinian statehood than he's against war. He funded Hamas to delegitimize Abbas/Palestinian statehood/two-state solution/peace. | | |
| ▲ | jraby3 5 hours ago | parent [-] | | The PA still uses a pay to slay program encouraging the murder of Israeli civilians within the 67 borders. President Abbas has a PhD in holocaust denial. Calling the PA left wing isn't accurate. It's also bent on the destruction of Israel and the Jewish people. |
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| ▲ | gitremote 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > Reality is Israel is run by psychopaths who would be in jail if it weren't for their their cynical use of constant war as a misdirection. Israeli police began investigating Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu for fraud in 2016. Israeli courts indicted him for multiple cases of fraud in 2019. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trial_of_Benjamin_Netanyahu | |
| ▲ | rcpt 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | You're absolutely correct on this but because of the point you're making they've downvoted you into the grey | |
| ▲ | globalnode 8 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | downvoted because truth hurts? lol, tough crowd here my friend. | | |
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| ▲ | belter 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > Iran has been supplying and funding Hamas Qatar has probably funded Hamas more than Iran and now the future Air Force One is a Qatari plane... “Qatar has historically been a funder of terrorism at a very high level” - Donald J. Trump - June 2017
"Qatar has been a key financial supporter of the Palestinian militant organization Hamas, transferring more than $1.8 billion to Hamas over the years..."https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qatari_support_for_Hamas | | |
| ▲ | ta1243 7 hours ago | parent [-] | | The Don in charge of the USA isn't concerned about the money goes to Hamas, he just wants his slice. Qatar knows that and can respect that. | | |
| ▲ | ben_w 7 hours ago | parent [-] | | Unfortunately for basically everyone, this suggests a quick-win strategy for Iran: Bribe Trump, personally, with lots money or equivalent, to literally nuke Israel. What's wrong with this picture? (And I don't mean in the sense of a Futurama meme of Farnsworth saying "I don't want to live on this planet any more"). | | |
| ▲ | matthewdgreen 6 hours ago | parent [-] | | This would absolutely work if the other gulf states weren't prepared to bribe him much, much more to prevent it. And yes, it is dismal. We are essentially run by foreign countries until January 20, 2029. |
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| ▲ | ivape 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | You don’t need a lot of funding to convince 15 year olds in Palestine to go murder. Pay closer attention to the settlements, it did more for mobilizing Israel’s enemies than any amount of psyops or military funding could ever do. It’s very clear to me Israel has had some of the most retarded foreign policy experts for decades now. The truth is the same truth we have in the U.S, 70+ million that voted for Trump harbor a higher degree of racism that is near impossible to stop (will take generations). Israelis HATE Palestinians, and therefore they cannot make even the most obvious game theory choices on building better safety environments (finance and launch a multi decade campaign to uplift Gaza from poverty of mind, heart, and material - unless you are fucking racist and would rather live in conflict than EVER give an inch.) | | | |
| ▲ | rusk 8 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | [flagged] | | |
| ▲ | inglor_cz 7 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | The Islamic Republic is absolutely brutal as well. The difference isn't in brutality. It is in the word "Islamic". That is the core of the ideological hostility of the current Iranian government towards Israel. | | |
| ▲ | handfuloflight 7 hours ago | parent [-] | | What specific "Islamic" doctrines do they cite? | | |
| ▲ | spwa4 6 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | That the islamic prophet was a slaver, slave trader, rapist, paedophile, warlord, warmonger (personally profited, in money, from the wars he caused), forced slaves to fight in wars, executed slaves for disobedience, liar (used peace treaties as weapons of war, against Jews), genocide, war criminal, ... For example, these ayatollahs, who have forgotten more about islam than any muslim I've ever discussed with has ever known, claim that women who refuse to cover up (it was really more burning hijabs and demonstrating) can't be executed according to islamic doctrine for that, if they were young and virgins. Sounds great. Except what they decided what this "islamic doctrine" meant was to have them raped repeatedly by soldiers ... and THEN execute them. Virgin problem solved. https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2023/12/iran-security... Oh here is the list of credentials of khamenei, the person in charge of that. But let me guess, you "know better" and "know" this somehow isn't islam. Of course, you aren't willing to do anything about it either ... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ali_Khamenei Some highlights: "Khamenei's education began at the age of four, by learning the Quran at Maktab;[7] he spent his basic and advanced levels of seminary studies at the hawza of Mashhad, under mentors such as Sheikh Hashem Qazvini and Ayatollah Milani. Then, he went to Najaf in 1957,[26] but soon returned to Mashhad due to his father's unwillingness to let him stay there. In 1958, he settled in Qom where he attended the classes of Seyyed Hossein Borujerdi and Ruhollah Khomeini.[7]" | | |
| ▲ | handfuloflight 6 hours ago | parent [-] | | This is pure gish galloping inflammatory rhetoric designed to provoke rather than inform. But for the benefit of anyone reading, let me show how to spot bad faith arguments by fact-checking just one claim. You say that Muhammad 'used peace treaties as weapons of war, against Jews', but the historical record shows the complete opposite, and the full story makes your accusation look absurd. The Banu Qurayza violated the Treaty of Medina during wartime, which was considered an act of treason in violation of the constitution agreed by all citizens of Medina, including the Banu Qurayza Jews.¹ They broke their treaty obligations by conspiring with attacking forces during the siege of Medina. But here's the part that completely destroys your narrative: *The Banu Qurayza themselves appointed Sa'd ibn Mu'adh as their judge, and declared they would agree with whatever was his verdict.*² They chose their own judge: Sa'd ibn Mu'adh, who was from the Aws tribe and had been their ally. And the judgment? *The verdict for the Banu Qurayza was consistent with the Old Testament, specifically based on Deuteronomy 20:12-14.*³ Sa'd judged them to execution according to Jewish law, not Islamic law. So let me get this straight: The Jews broke the treaty, they requested to be judged by their own ally, that ally judged them according to their own Torah, and somehow this becomes Muhammad "using peace treaties as weapons against Jews"? This is the exact opposite of what you claimed. The Jews broke the treaty, chose their own judge, and were judged by their own law. If someone gets such a well-documented historical event completely backwards while making inflammatory accusations, that tells you everything you need to know about the reliability of their other claims. 1. W. Montgomery Watt, Muhammad at Medina (Oxford University Press, 1956). Fred Donner, Muhammad and the Believers (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2010) 2. William Muir, The Life of Mahomet (Smith, Elder & Co., 1861), Vol. 3, Alfred Guillaume, The Life of Muhammad (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1955). 3. Deuteronomy 20:12-14 (Hebrew Bible); Barakat Ahmad, Muhammad and the Jews (Vikas Publishing, 1979). |
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| ▲ | inglor_cz 7 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | I certainly don't feel expert enough to discuss the entirety of Khomeini's work, upon which the Islamic Republic of Iran was founded, including its foreign policy. But he was a bona fide scholar of Islam. | | |
| ▲ | handfuloflight 7 hours ago | parent [-] | | I didn't ask you to discuss the entirety of it. I also have scholarship in Islamic Studies and am curious what doctrines. Surely you can cite one? As I haven't come across any that call for unrestricted violence against Jewish people. Or any people, for that matter. | | |
| ▲ | nailer 6 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | I imagine it’s the same ones perpetrators of Islamic violence everywhere else cite. I imagine you may also know. | | |
| ▲ | handfuloflight 6 hours ago | parent [-] | | You say you 'imagine' there are Islamic doctrines calling for violence against Jews that 'perpetrators cite.' Stop imagining. Cite them. What specific verses or doctrines are you referring to? Give us the exact citations. Because once you do, I have a very simple question for you: If those verses mean what you think they mean, why didn't Umar ibn al-Khattab, the second Caliph of Islam and Muhammad's direct companion, know about them? When Umar took Jerusalem from the Byzantines in 638 CE, instead of slaughtering Jews, he invited them back to a city they'd been banned from for 500 years under Christian rule. He protected their religious practices and established legal frameworks for their protection. So either: These verses don't exist or don't mean what you think, OR the second Caliph, who learned Islam directly from Muhammad, somehow didn't understand basic Islamic doctrine. Which is it? Put up or shut up. Cite the specific verses you're claiming exist, then explain why Muhammad's direct successor acted in the exact opposite way. | | |
| ▲ | nailer 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | No I am saying that Islamic doctrine is used to support Islamic violence against many people globally. I’m not sure why anyone would think that would be limited to Jewish people. I think the reason you limited the discussion in this way is because you are not arguing in good faith. I have lived the last 44 years in Australia, the United Kingdom and now the United States, each of which have been victims of Islamic violence in different ways. I understand you want me to cite specific hadiths, as I said earlier I think any Islamic scholar would already know which ones, so you’re not arguing in good faith. I want you to know I am familiar with the ‘no true scotsman’ fallacy and feel you will employ it. You have no right to demand anything from me. As an Islamic scholar you are also familiar with the concept of dhimmis. I think the reason you didn’t mention them here is because you know Islam creating laws to treat others as second class citizens is shameful, and you did now acknowledge these because you are not arguing in good faith. I won’t stop talking about Islamic violence because you demand I do so, you have no right to demand this of anyone and your personal beliefs deserve no special respect. |
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| ▲ | inglor_cz 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | I am not a scholar of Islam, but I am pretty sure that no core doctrine calls for the mere existence, much less outright political rule, of people called ayatollahs either. And yet here we are. Regardless of the above, the Islamic Republic of Iran calls itself Islamic and takes the velayat-e-faqih system, developed by Khomeini, as divinely inspired. | | |
| ▲ | handfuloflight 6 hours ago | parent [-] | | You now've just demolished your original argument, and here's the proof using your own words: You just admitted that the specific system of ayatollah rule has 'no core doctrine' supporting it. You acknowledged that this particular form of clerical authority is an innovation that doesn't exist in foundational Islamic teachings. Then you say Khomeini 'developed' velayat-e-faqih as a new system. So by your own admission: core Islamic doctrine doesn't support this specific form of clerical rule by ayatollahs; and that Khomeini had to 'develop' (i.e., invent) the velayat-e-faqih framework. So, Iran's system is based on this modern Shia innovation, not established Islamic governance models. But your original claim was that Iran's hostility toward Israel stems from 'Islamic' ideological doctrine. You can't have it both ways, either Iran's policies flow from broadly accepted Islamic teachings, or they flow from Khomeini's specific 20th-century innovation that most Muslims reject. You've just proven that Iran's system represents one minority sect's modern political invention, not mainstream Islamic doctrine. You don't need to be an Islamic scholar to know there are two major branches: Sunni and Shia. If you don't know this basic distinction, you shouldn't be making claims about 'Islam' generally. If you do know it, then you're being disingenuous trying to pass off one minority Shia innovation as representative of all Islam. | | |
| ▲ | inglor_cz 6 hours ago | parent [-] | | I demolished nothing. The Islamic Republic of Iran a) considers itself Islamic,
b) it is indeed ruled by scholars of Islam,
c) bases its policy and politics on Islam. You say that they are basically heretics and that the majority of Muslims don't agree with them. So what. I haven't said that all Muslims want to destroy Israel for religious reasons. If I want to be extra precise, the Islamic Republic of Iran is compelled by Islam as of its own understanding to destroy Israel. And given that there is no central authority in Islam that would issue binding declarations on what is Islam and what is Heresy, this is basically the norm in the Islamic world. Every nation and community practices Islam as it understands it, which means quite a lot of internal diversity. | | |
| ▲ | handfuloflight 6 hours ago | parent [-] | | Your original claim: Iran's hostility stems from 'Islamic' ideological doctrine. Your new claim: Iran follows 'Islam as of its own understanding' and there's no central authority to define what's Islamic. So you've just admitted that Iran's version isn't representative of Islam generally and that there's no authoritative way to call their interpretation 'Islamic'. That every community 'practices Islam as it understands it'. This demolishes your original point even further. If anyone can interpret Islam however they want with no central authority, then Iran's actions tell us nothing about 'Islamic' doctrine, they only tell us about Iran's political choices wrapped in religious language. By your own logic, I could point to: Indonesia, the largest Muslim country, which is democratic and has peaceful relations with Israel. Or the UAE, Bahrain, Morocco, who've normalized relations with Israel. Jordan, Egypt: these have peace treaties with Israel. I could point to these and say they represent 'Islam as of their own understanding' just as validly as Iran does. You've essentially argued that Iran's interpretation is just one of many possible interpretations with no special claim to authenticity. That's the opposite of your original claim that Iran's hostility flows from Islamic doctrine. You started by claiming Iran represents Islamic teaching. Now you're saying every Muslim community makes up their own version. Pick one: you can't have both. And you still haven't provided a single citation of actual Islamic doctrine supporting violence against Jews, which was the original challenge. | | |
| ▲ | inglor_cz 5 hours ago | parent [-] | | There is no version of Islam that would be "representative of Islam generally", this is a trivial observation that you are trying to use as a cudgel. You are engaging in an elaborate No True Scotsman fallacy. For me, if if walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it is a duck, and I will consider the Islamic Republic of Iran to be Islamic. I don't particularly care about sectarian squabbles what is geniunely Islamic or not. | | |
| ▲ | handfuloflight 5 hours ago | parent [-] | | Your arguments collapsed under scrutiny. You claimed Iran's hostility stems from "Islamic doctrine" but couldn't cite a single supporting text. You've retreated to "if it calls itself Islamic, it's Islamic," like claiming North Korea represents democracy because "Democratic" is in its name. When you stated "There is no version of Islam that would be representative of Islam generally," you contradict Islamic tradition itself. The Prophet Muhammad, the FOUNDER of the religion said: "My community will never agree upon error" and "Allah's hand is with the congregation" (Source: Tirmidhi). This hadith establishes that consensus (ijma) of the Muslim community is authoritative in Islam. Look, these facts remain: you admitted Iran's system is Khomeini's modern innovation. Most Muslim nations have peaceful relations with Israel. And you've cited zero Islamic doctrines supporting your claim. This isn't about religion: it's politics in religious clothing. If Iran's position were truly Islamic, 1.8 billion Muslims would share it. They don't. Stop conflating one country's politics with an entire faith. |
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| ▲ | breppp 8 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | and? did he hang homosexuals on cranes? cut the hands of thieves or rape protestors? I am pretty sure Iran's current regime wins the brutal dictatorship game | | |
| ▲ | Fluorescence 7 hours ago | parent [-] | | The Shar's CIA trained secret police, SAVAK, tortured and murdered thousands and yes, they raped prisoners. The Federation of American Scientists reported their torture methods included: "electric shock, whipping, beating, inserting broken glass and pouring boiling water into the rectum, tying weights to the testicles, and the extraction of teeth and nails". | | |
| ▲ | breppp 7 hours ago | parent [-] | | so nothing changed then, hasn't it? except for the addition of some cruel medieval islamic punishments and the occasional intentional blinding of protestors |
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| ▲ | krzyk 9 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > One would hope, but if Allah is protecting them why would they need to fear retaliation? Allah or Jahwe, what's the difference. Both countries are some kind of theocracies, that see infidels as inferior. If Israel has nukes, so should Iran. At least Iran is Shia, so different from the most Muslims, which are Sunni. | | |
| ▲ | handfuloflight 7 hours ago | parent [-] | | > Allah or Jahwe, what's the difference. ...there is no difference. Islam and Judaism trace to Abrahamic monotheism. One through the son Isaac, the other through Ishmael. |
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| ▲ | fortran77 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | You’re not going to win an argument with someone who will always blame the Jews for all the world’s (and his personal) woes. |
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| ▲ | rajup 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > So thinking Iran will simply nuke Israel because it has that capability is silly - it would mean mutual destruction. 100%. The Iranian regime is not stupid. The "existential threat" bs being peddled by a certain government is simply to give cover to illegal attacks on a sovereign nation. This is "WMDs in Iraq" all over again. | | |
| ▲ | dekelpilli 4 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | This was Israel's thinking with Hamas - they're deterred, they're comfortable and in charge and they wouldn't do anything to jeopardise that, etc. Israel's thinking was wrong, and they've learned to believe their enemies when they say they want to destroy Israel. There isn't a country in the world that would allow their enemies, who have repeatedly stated that said country's demise is a key goal of theirs, to develop nukes if they have with the capability to stop it. | |
| ▲ | mu53 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | I think they are stupid for broadcasting the program and threatening Israel with it. Believe people when they tell you what they are going to do. Even if Iran wouldn’t use it if they had it, threatening to use it shifts the probability for them using it. Khomeini isn’t on Kim jong un’s level | |
| ▲ | scotty79 7 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | > 100%. The Iranian regime is not stupid. I'm not sure how can you say that, now that they are dead, completely due to how they positioned themselves on the regional and global landscape. |
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| ▲ | mattmaroon 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | It can be both. You're creating a false dichotomy. https://www.bu.edu/history/files/2015/04/Khalaji-Apocalyptic... Mutual destruction makes sense when you're a death cult and the enemy is evil. Iran nuking Israel knowing full well they will get nuked back IS rational if your belief is that Allah will reward you for it in the afterlife and they do sincerly believe that. You should read books published by reformed Islamists. Radical by Maajid Nawaz is a good one. They profess to believe (and they are sincere) that they will be rewarded for dying killing Israelis. There's a reason that if I tell you a story about a suicide bomber blowing up a public square in political protest you do not have to wonder what religion they are. It's not because all Muslims are insane, they aren't, it's because some of them have beliefs that make that action rational. (For example, see how Hamas will not surrender even when offered free passage out of Gaza. They'd rather Israel grind their way through the Palestinian population bomb by bomb because they think every Palestinian killed goes to heaven. If they were rational as we understand the world, they'd realize their plight is hopeless and the only thing they ensure by staying is civillian deaths.) | | |
| ▲ | samjones33 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | >(For example, see how Hamas will not surrender Yup. Hamas will fight to the last Palestinian. They could have ended the Gaza war a year ago (or more). All they have to say is: "Here are the hostages. Here are our weapons. We are now shoemakers." Why don't they do this? Because they would rather fight to the last Palestinian child. Hamas has agency. They could end war any time since October 8, 2023. | | |
| ▲ | mattmaroon 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Because they are a death cult. They sincerely believe exactly what they profess, everyone who Israel kills is a martyr and goes to heaven with extra benefits. From their perspective it’s all wins. Every bomb Israel drops sends their people to heaven and makes Israel look bad to the world. The hardest part of conversing with a lot of people about this situation is getting them to understand the idea of a death cult. Once you accept that some people not only don’t fear death but actively seek it for themselves and their tribe, the Middle East makes a lot more sense. There’s so much evidence both in what they say (they do not hide it) and what they do but so much of the west refuses to accept it. | |
| ▲ | dreghgh 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | The PLO pulled out of Beirut in the early 1980s after being given guarantees from the international community that the remaining Palestinian population, unarmed civilians, would be protected both from Lebanese Christians and Israeli forces. Then Israeli forces colluded with Christian militias to massacre Palestinians in their camps. Hamas was never going to disarm and hand back the hostages based on "Trust me, bro". |
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| ▲ | epolanski 9 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | When I said I was conflicted I meant that on one side it seems like a bad idea to give up WMDs for these countries, but it's also a bad idea for them to have them. In Iran's case this is further compounded by their consistent anti Israeli PR and anti-Israeli militias funding. | |
| ▲ | jeswin 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > illegal WMD Who has "legal" WMDs - the P5? Israel is a non-signatory to NPT, meaning their WMDs are as legal as anyone else's. | |
| ▲ | echoangle 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > And a reminder - Israel has illegals WMDs, using technology and nuclear material stolen from the US. By what means are the israeli nukes (I assume thats whats meant by WMDs?) illegal? They didn't sign the Non-Proliferation Treaty and I don't think spying and stealing is illegal between countries under international law. | | | |
| ▲ | ashoeafoot 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | They would use some proxxy and shroud the nuke in ambiguity . They have driven 45 years of proxxy war against israel and had it comingbso long its 1.5 generations family buisness now | |
| ▲ | solumunus 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Silly! Such flippant language. Yes, it would be silly. Jihadists do “silly” things all the time. Their goals are “silly”. | |
| ▲ | dlahoda 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | afaik as i recall gov of iran says israel is little satan and says it goal to kill it. is it crazy, sure. is it crazy story to say,no. it seems real. | | |
| ▲ | rusk 8 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | > gov of iran says israel is little satan A pretty popular opinion these days | | |
| ▲ | GlacierFox 8 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Yeah it's surreal. Imagine if a terrorist group hopped the border into the USA and gleefully massacred a couple thousand people and then took loads of hostages into one of the most densely packed, boobie trapped , fundamentalist hell holes on the planet while being protected by the death-cult populace. That place would be leveled and you wouldn't hear a peep of opposition. | | |
| ▲ | ben_w 7 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | > That place would be leveled and you wouldn't hear a peep of opposition. You wouldn't hear any opposition from inside the USA. At the same time, the USA levelling the place would create a lot of opposition basically everywhere else. The UK government trying to toe the line with the USA about invading Iraq in the name of the GWOT was met with 10-16% of the UK population marching in protest against UK involvement: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/15_February_2003_anti-war_prot... This is something I bring up whenever anyone can't understand why Israel's response to Hamas' attack nearly two years ago now is likely even stronger than the USA's to 9/11 — even at best it would take a decade for the rage to dissipate, and the Israeli people are unlikely to care about the opinions of people like me for the same reason the Americans didn't. | | |
| ▲ | samjones33 4 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | >Israel's response to Hamas' attack nearly two years ago now is likely even stronger than the USA's to 9/11 I dunno about that. Iraq suffered between a quarter million and a million dead (depending on how you count). The % of those who touched a gun is low, under %10. The vast majority are civilians. There wasn't a focused effort to bring in food, water or electricity to Iraq. A key difference is that Iraqis could leave, and hundreds of thousands did (to Syria, Jordan and other countries). Israel's war in Gaza, messy and horrible as it is, is far (very far) more focused on Hamas than America's wars were in Iraq and Afghanistan. | | |
| ▲ | ben_w 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | I should have phrased it differently, I meant the psychological response, not the military response. |
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| ▲ | GlacierFox 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | I'm British, you wouldn't hear a peep from me. I'm not Jewish either. I think you're incorrect about the opposition. You get the loud mouth left that for some reason have aligned themselves to a terrorist organisation. But if you go down the pub and speak to real people here in the UK, it's the complete opposite. It's reflected in the most recent polling where the vast majority of the country voted for what could be described as the most right-wing party seriously operating in the UK today. People are really getting fed up of Islamic nonsense leaking into our completely incompatible society. |
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| ▲ | matthewdgreen 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | I was alive during 9/11 and this is more or less what we did, albeit in a more distant set of countries. I don't think we came out of the experience better off. | | |
| ▲ | GlacierFox 6 hours ago | parent [-] | | "albeit in a more distant set of countries" You've said that like it's of no significance. |
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| ▲ | bavell 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Nope, we would have sent in strike teams, special ops, etc to get the hostages out BEFORE leveling the place. Anything different would face massive opposition and carry a political death sentence for whoever gave the order. | | |
| ▲ | GlacierFox 6 hours ago | parent [-] | | Oh strike teams? Like the ones they sent in to Palestine? The ones that found it impossible to get anyone back due to the density of depraved traps around every corner and every tunnel while dealing with a populace that literally wants to wipe you and cut your head off at the first chance? "Anything different would face massive opposition and carry a political death sentence for whoever gave the order." That's your personal opinion. |
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| ▲ | epolanski 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Few problems with your statement are: 1) Israeli government willingly favored Hamas governing the Gaza strip and completely cut off the Palestinian authority 2) Israeli government ignored their own intelligence and even allowed money and weapons transfer from Qatar to Hamas 3) Israeli intelligence knew October 7 was gonna happen and did little to prevent it 4) While October 7 is one of the most despicable acts of crime and terror ever happened, it has not happened in a vacuum. It has happened by people who are literally living in the hell and open prison the Israelis have created for them | | |
| ▲ | samjones33 4 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | >3) Israeli intelligence knew October 7 was gonna happen and did little to prevent it This is not considered valid in Israel. In Israel October 7 is considered a massive failure of intelligence. No one in the top 30 of any Israeli intelligence agency that Oct 7 was going to happen. | |
| ▲ | GlacierFox 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | You have raised some interesting points that I will read about and try to make sense of. |
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| ▲ | breppp 8 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | only means that their long game plan of sacrificing the palestinians for a chance at some regional/international influence is working | | |
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| ▲ | margorczynski 9 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | The same shit NK says about SK and the USA but still I don't see nukes flying. You shouldn't mistake propaganda for the masses with the leadership being crazy fanatics. | | |
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| ▲ | FrozenSynapse 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > it would mean mutual destruction. some religious lunatics would deem that worthy | | |
| ▲ | m000 9 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | > some religious lunatics would deem that worthy That would be primarily Evangelical Zionists, seeking to hasten the end of days. | | | |
| ▲ | dlahoda 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | it will not be mutual. look at map and size of countries. so it even no need to be lunatic to act some nukes. | |
| ▲ | foolserrandboy 8 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | [dead] |
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| ▲ | dlahoda 10 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | israel is way smaller and easier to bomb. why would not iran gov sacrifice few million of its people to kill whole israel? | | |
| ▲ | spwa4 10 hours ago | parent [-] | | Because Iran is a developed country and the Iranian population actually has a future if they take their government back from the clerics? Hell, in the next 30 or so years oil will disappear from the middle east, and Iran is just about the only country that has a realistic shot at still having an economy after that. | | |
| ▲ | HPsquared 9 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Libya was pretty developed with an educated population, decent economy etc too, more developed then Iran I'd say.. look how that turned out. State collapse is no joke. | | |
| ▲ | ALLTaken 7 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | there are private banks and operations similar to BlackWater, like Osherbrand and many others that steal, murder and take capital from the public by re-enforcing external threats and then providing "rescue" via their private fleet to extract the corrupt politicians for 30% to 70% commissions and murder away anyone hindering them. Collapse my ass, it's foreign influence and internal corruption. Like always. Be neutral and objective, but America, Ukraine and Israel are currently the most agresively operating forces salivating over WW3. Yes, Russia is also quite brutal, but it's not going to profit from WW3 on the stock market! Who are the PROFITEERS of this? How can WE fight this war mongering? Do we need to get active on the Battlefield?
Do we need to sabotage Sattelite Networks, disarm financial incentives etc. etc. to combat those who want a WW3? Only billionaires are going to become richer from a war.
Everyone else will eat radioactive food and their DNA will be wiped out forever from the human gene pool. Seem like an Eugenic goal | | |
| ▲ | libertine 7 hours ago | parent [-] | | Ukraine is being invaded in a genocidal war to try to annex them and delete them from the map, by Russia. Russia signed the Budapest Memorandum with Ukraine for them to surrender their nukes. All while Russia is threatning with nuclear destruction of Ukraine and Western countries. So, how the hell is Ukraine salivating over WW3 and Russia isn't LMAO | | |
| ▲ | ALLTaken 6 hours ago | parent [-] | | aggressive and loaded comment you made here. Actions provoking WW3 are as I commented. You've not made a valid counter argument and have only chose PARTISANSHIP. Which I have not. I suggest etiquette and neutral speech before spitting hate in internet forums. | | |
| ▲ | libertine 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | > aggressive and loaded comment you made here. I disagree, but in light of your previous comment, it doesn't shock me. > Actions provoking WW3 are as I commented. You're wrong, they're not. You have pretty clearly chosen PARTISANSHIP by stating a country being invaded and fighting for their lives and sovereignty as the ones salivating for WW3. It's a remarkable backward-thinking exercise. Russia is clearly: - violating International Law, the UN Charter, and many other agreements and memoranda; - all while threatening nuclear annihilation of Ukraine, UK, USA and other European countries; - Attacking and destroying third countries' civilian infrastructures; Among other atrocities and crimes. But somehow, through magical thinking, you deem them as the victims here who have nothing to gain from this. You are not OK with stock market gains, but you're OK with Russia stealing Ukrainian natural resources, their population, including kidnapped children? Let me ask you this: according to your logic, were Hitler and Stalin the victims, and was Poland salivating for starting WW2? |
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| ▲ | inglor_cz 7 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Libya was also tribal in its core. Nation building takes decades if not centuries and cannot be substituted by quick oil money. Iran is not tribal, it is a fairly ancient empire with strong continuity over 2500 years. Approximately as old as Rome, but with no collapse. Iran will almost certainly hold together if the current batch of rulers disappears. It survived even the Mongols. |
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| ▲ | rusk 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > if they take their government back from the clerics? They took back their government and they “gave” it to the clerics back in C20 The Iranians by and large have the state they want. Strong parallel with Irish history where independence brought about a theocratic Junta. That only went away with deeper integration into the European economy. | | |
| ▲ | tech2 5 hours ago | parent [-] | | Are we forgetting the pushback against nationalisation of their oil industry, operations involving both CIA and MI6, the propaganda campaign to get rid of their elected president, and other such fun? It's not like the west didn't have some rather significant involvement and incentive here. They have what they have because the west (as is common) messed with another nation. | | |
| ▲ | spwa4 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | No, nobody is ever forgetting that. It gets shoved into everyone's faces at EVERY opportunity. This is strange, because when it comes to moral failings, oil profits and corruption aren't on any serious person's radar. Because what does get forgotten is that socialists worldwide strongly supported the revolution, from Moscow to Brazil, Berlin to New York, including supporting khomeini. With the UK's campaign "khomeini doesn't seek power, just wants to free Iran" message (spread by the BBC), and France's asylum and help. Protest marches in support of what turned out to be murderous islamists in every capital. As for tactics: Khomeini (let's be honest here: it was Khomeini) organized snipers to shoot into the security services during a protest, provoking a battle where 89 people died ... at which point Khomeini declared that "4,000 innocent protesters were massacred by Zionists". The protestors, whipped up by leftists did not take khomeini at his word, organized a general country-wide strike ... Khomeini organized further attacks on both his allies and the government, each time blaming zionists, never losing socialist support ... and 2 years later, now in power, Khomeini organized a massacre to "purify" Iranian society of his socialist allies, at least 3800 brutally executed, including high school students, one at most 7 years old. He has kept killing, and khamenei has continued the killings, some years 300, in the last decade more like 1000 every year. Famously khamenei declared that "executing minors is illegal, if they're virgins". By which he meant that female prisoners are to be raped multiple times before execution. [1] But I guess that's better than vague oil corruption and evil western influence, isn't it? Never mind that of course the revolution has totally failed Iran. They did not bring jobs, did not bring housing, did not ... in the 50 years they have in power. Needless to say, more people died in Khomeini's purification than in every other part of the revolution combined. Hell, more people died in the last 5 years of "islamic" peace, than died in the 5 years of the revolution. [1] https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2023/12/iran-security... |
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| ▲ | anonnon 9 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | > Because Iran is a developed country and the Iranian population actually has a future if they take their government back from the clerics They're talking about the current regime, from which it isn't clear the population will ever successfully take back their country. |
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| ▲ | mattmaroon 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Ukraine gave up working nukes, don’t forget them. I think the point of this bombing is to change the calculus you just mentioned. Now there’s an actual reason to not try for nukes, you may get bombed. NK’s conventional weapons (and SK’s pointed right back at them) saved them from conflict, that’s how they got to nukes without us doing something like this. They already had mutually assured destruction from conventional weapons and proximity to an ally. Iran’s problem is we don’t care much about anyone around them except Israel, and they already would destroy Israel if they could, so they had nobody’s head at which to aim their bullet. NK’s government is an evil one but the Kims really like being alive and that keeps them somewhat rational. They are quite obviously not religious since they claim to be God (and surely are aware they are not), so they don’t believe in benefits to martyrdom. Islamism is a death cult (and I mean that literally) so their actions aren’t rational as we would define the word. We can’t rely on their self-preservation instinct the way we can with the Kims. | | |
| ▲ | somenameforme 6 hours ago | parent [-] | | Ukraine never had "control" of nukes. Russia was the sole producer/controller of nukes within the USSR. Those nukes were then deployed throughout the USSR, but the individual regions within the USSR never had any capability to independently launch or control those nukes. It would be akin to what will happen when the US eventually collapses and we have military bases and nukes scattered throughout the world. Germany in that case will then briefly technically have nukes, but no ability to knowledge of how to launch or control them. Had Ukraine tried to hold onto those nukes and/or figure out how to launch them they would likely have been invaded by just about every country in the world, including the US, so they gave them up for a few bucks and some kind words. And I strongly disagree about Iran. Pakistan is also an Islamic country (with its proper name being the Islamic Republic of Pakistan) and a nuclear power, and they haven't just decided to go nuke India who they have abysmal relations with. Religion does provide a different level of comfort with death (and Iran has a longgggggg history of enduring pain to expel invaders on top), but it does not just turn people into death cult members. There's some irony in that if Iran had nuclear weapons their relations with Israel would likely have been much better. Because Israel wouldn't have been constantly attacking, assassinating, and otherwise doing everything they could to undermine the country. It's similar to how if North Korea didn't have nukes then South Korea, largely as a proxy of the US, would likely have been actively attacking them. | | |
| ▲ | mattmaroon 5 hours ago | parent [-] | | Islamism != Islam. Plenty of Muslims (most, thankfully) are not Islamists, including Pakistan. Pakistan also does not fund terror globally (though India says they do it locally) because they do not believe they go to heaven for killing Israelis. There are a number of Muslims, including the Supreme Leader, who do. My contention was not that any muslims would nuke Israel if they had a chance, most surely would not, but it's reasonable to believe Iran would. Hamas and Hezbollah would, and Iran would love to give them the opportunity. South Korea was never going to attack North Korea because, as I mentioned, they had plenty of conventional weapons they could easily deliver to South Korea. They had mutually assured destruction before they even tried to get nukes, that's why they succeeded. Iran does not have that yet, and must be stopped before they do. I do now know whether this was the right way to do it by any means, and I think it's a shame that the Obama-era deal was abandoned. I think we could possibly have gotten here through peaceful measures. But we did need to get to here. | | |
| ▲ | somenameforme 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | Pakistan was historically one of the most active sponsors of terrorism worldwide. [1] Their activities over time have moderated, but again exactly as I was suggesting would happen with Iran - this is likely in large part because they're not a target of various offensive activities, precisely because they have nukes. Each time you attack a country and kill people, those friends, relatives, and parts of the unconnected population do not forget nor forgive. You create the radicalism you claim to fight against. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pakistan_and_state-sponsored_t... |
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| ▲ | perihelions 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > "You lack that deterrent you get attacked, as simple as that. Libya, Syria, Iraq gave up their WMD projects eventually got bombed/attacked." It's not that simple. Those countries were destined towards collapse with or without nuclear weapons. Iraq, Libya, Syria—those are three countries that fell into catastrophic civil wars, along internal conflict lines, in power vacuums succeeding an unpopular dictator. None of those autocracies were stable in the long-term. (But a nuclear weapon is quite stable; it succeeds the falls of governments and passes on to whoever replaces them). Deplore US' strategic stupidities all you want; but it's not the only actor with agency in the world. Would anyone have been better off with Assad fighting a version of the 2010's civil war with nuclear weapons in his arsenal? Or Hussein, that sectarian war? Those are two men who gassed thousands of innocents with nerve agents; they wouldn't surely wouldn't hesitate long about dropping nukes. (Can you deter a civil war with nuclear weapons?) We could also ask who would have inherited a hypothetical Qaddafi nuke, after his fall: which Libya? There were at least three Libyas one point. ISIL governed one! (One semantic nitpick: I don't think it's fair to say those dictators "gave up" their WMD's. With all three, their WMD programs were forcibly taken from them. In Iraq, 1981, the bombing of the Osirak reactor; and again in the 1991 Gulf War the bombing of Tuwaitha (which permanently ended Iraq's uranium enrichment). Qaddafi turned over all his nuclear materials to the USA, after being directly threatened, in the months following US' 2003 invasion of Iraq. And Assad lost his North Korean-built plutonium reactor in 2007, to an airstrike. Did anyone of these dictators have agency in those "give up WMD" choices? I think not). | |
| ▲ | nine_k 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Indeed, nuclear weapons are a tricky thing. On one hand, there are nuclear non-proliferation treaties, on the other, peaceful nuclear power plants. To obtain nukes, you have to have good relationships with the current big powers, build peaceful nuclear installations, and very covertly produce the weapons based on it, while the big boys look the other way, or maybe even secretly help. That's approximately how China, India, Pakistan, and Israel obtained their nukes. (North Korea is a special case.) Once you've obtained some nukes, complete with decent rockets to liv them, nobody is going to mess with you too badly, or try to take the nukes back; you're now a member if the club. Japan or South Korea would likely be able to produce nuclear weapons in a few months if they needed to. I bet even Ukraine could, with its remaining nuclear plants and relatively advanced industry, and are on friendly terms with the US. But if you made enemies with the big members of the nuclear club, and with the US in particular, they will do everything to stop you, and your situation would become much harder; that's the case with Iran. | |
| ▲ | davedx 11 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Don’t forget Ukraine - gave up their nukes and look what happened | | |
| ▲ | lIl-IIIl 11 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | They never really had them. They were in Ukraine but Moscow had control. | | |
| ▲ | varjag 10 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | This is a minor distinction. In they end they all set off by pyrotechnic charges. Authorization sequence is nothing an industrial power can't get around. | | |
| ▲ | epolanski 9 hours ago | parent [-] | | You seem to completely misunderstand why the entire world wanted Ukraine to get rid of their ICBMs. 1) They could not operate them. It isn't just about authorization sequence, it's about having all of the required electronics. You need satellites that point and guide the ICBMs. All of those were in Moscow hands. Even if Ukraine could ignite them, it could not launch them or set their paths, etc. 2) They did not have the budget to guard them, let alone maintain them, even less reverse engineer. The biggest risk was that rough states with deep pockets would buy those rockets on the black market (and Ukraine notably sold out most of their soviet arsenal). 3) Thus, the only real asset was the nuclear material itself. An asset that was more likely going to end up on the black market than do anything useful for Ukraine's defense. | | |
| ▲ | varjag 8 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | There's so much wrong you crammed into just three points am at loss to even where should I start. The value of nuclear weapons is in the warheads not delivery vehicles. Even then Ukraine absolutely could maintain a trimmed down nuclear arsenal with the missiles/engines serviced by Yuzhmash. After all bare ass Russia did it in the 1990s somehow. All the American financing of nuclear security to Russia would have been proportionally redirected to Ukraine. Then, Ukraine possessed a stockpile of highly enriched uranium all way until 2011. It was indeed sold off under Yanukovich to a rogue state though: Russia. There is one huge drawback to not signing the memorandum: Lukashenka's Belarus (another signatory) would have also kept the nukes. This is however never brought up by the memorandum fans and non-proliferation enjoyers on the Internet precisely because it's not something they would have minded. | | |
| ▲ | epolanski 5 hours ago | parent [-] | | > There's so much wrong you crammed into just three points am at loss to even where should I start. There's nothing wrong, what I wrote literally comes from official declassified documents and reports, you can read what insiders had to say. Ukrainians didn't want them, feared their meltdown and their inability to even just maintain them. The rest of the world knew they were bound to end up in a rogue's actor hands very soon. https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/sites/default/files/2024-01/slate.... https://www.belfercenter.org/publication/ukraine-illuminated... | | |
| ▲ | varjag 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | Ukraine was presented a carrot large enough to go along with it. This has nothing to do with its technical ability, as it remained a spacefaring nation throughout the recession years. Either way you seem to contradict yourself. On one hand Ukraine, then a major owner of former Soviet military industrial complex could not maintain or use the weapons. On the other you insist unspecified rogue actors would be skilled enough to maintain and use them. Make up your mind. So the rest of the world did not know anything, as the perfect safety record of enriched nuclear fuel in Ukraine illustrates. They did want for the nukes to end up in Russia for the proliferation fears and convenience of negotiating with one power. The decision turned out ultimately misguided, contributing to the unraveling of the postwar world order we see today (ironically including the proliferation of nuclear technology to the rogue states). Bill Clinton, about as insider as it gets have expressed his regrets about it last year. |
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| ▲ | kevin_thibedeau 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > You need satellites that point and guide the ICBMs. No you don't. Cold war ICBMs all used intertial guidance. The most advanced in the form of the MX had a max CEP of 90 m. | |
| ▲ | krzyk 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Don't forget, but keeping nukes in Ukraine, would mean that Russia would get less of them. | | |
| ▲ | cmcaleer 7 hours ago | parent [-] | | It wasn't really particularly material whether Russia had 30,000 nukes or 32,000 nukes in 1994. It was material if other states got the components that were in those 2,000 nukes. |
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| ▲ | Braxton1980 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Could they have jerryrigged them?
For example load one into a truck (similar to the recent drone incident), drive it to the Kremlim, and then force a detonation? | |
| ▲ | varispeed 9 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Really? 1) Nukes were built mostly by Ukrainian engineers. They would do just fine. They could also build and launch satellites if needed. 2) So Ukraine couldn't launch them because they needed electronics and satellites, but some rogue state with deep pocket could? Okay. 3) Of course! Comrade, that is Russian propaganda you are disseminating here. |
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| ▲ | cromka 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Then why would they need a full Budapest memorandum with co-signees if Moscow could just take them back? This sounds ridiculous. | | |
| ▲ | varjag 10 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | It was indeed because there was no legal foundation for Russian ownership of all Soviet nuclear assets, no matter how every other nuclear power wanted it at the time. | | |
| ▲ | epolanski 9 hours ago | parent [-] | | By the way a "memorandum" is a document that forms no legal foundation at all. |
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| ▲ | dlahoda 10 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | because rockets to be transported to russkies back. if they would not sign, some bad things could happened along the way. |
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| ▲ | TiredOfLife 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | And Ukraine built them. | | | |
| ▲ | libertine 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | That's a recurring Russian propaganda point, which is easily verifiable as a lie. Even basic logic - Ukraine had the technical know-how to do whatever they wanted with the nukes. Moscow didn't have control, at best on paper - if they had control, there was no need for the Budapest Memorandum. I keep debunking this propaganda point over and over again lol |
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| ▲ | justsomehnguy 9 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Not theirs and you conveniently omit everything what happened in between, including the giant amounts of money directly and indirectly poured into it. | | |
| ▲ | o_m 9 hours ago | parent [-] | | What do you mean it was not theirs? The Soviet Union was dissolved and split into multiple states. Russia is not the Soviet Union, just another part of the former Soviet Union like Ukraine. | | |
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| ▲ | walterlw 10 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Now every country that has the capacity to get a strategic deterrent will race to get one. So much for Biden's escalation management. Too bad Trump likes Russia so much he does everything not to step on their toes. With a heftier backing from the US the Russo-Ukrainian war would be over by now. | | |
| ▲ | b33j0r 9 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | My counter-argument to norms being the main deterrent is simple. It’s never going to get easier to hide an Oak Ridge in your rogue state. The industrial scale of uranium enrichment has a fundamental limit, no matter how you do it. You have to process massive piles of mass into a very small fraction. And you have to collect all those rocks. And that’s just for fission. As long as any country with preemptive strike capability exists, and satellites exist… I just don’t see how anyone could do it. | | | |
| ▲ | averageRoyalty 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Genuine question, if the US has that capability and Trump is the issue, why didn't Biden do what was needed to make the war over? | | |
| ▲ | walterlw 10 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Biden took the approach of keeping 10 pairs of gloves on when dealing with Russia. Don't help too little not to make it too easy for the russians, don't help to much to avoid escalation. | | |
| ▲ | averageRoyalty 7 hours ago | parent [-] | | I understand and agree with that. But you said "With a heftier backing from the US the Russo-Ukrainian war would be over by now.". If that was viable, why would Biden not have done so during the years he had? |
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| ▲ | lazide 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | The US has every incentive to turn Ukraine into Russia’s Vietnam. | |
| ▲ | 9 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | [deleted] |
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| ▲ | FpUser 9 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | >"With a heftier backing from the US the Russo-Ukrainian war would be over by now." And you know this how? Accordingly to all those initial predictions Russia should be already disintegrated and fallen under heavy sanctions, Putin's regime replaced etc. etc. I suspect all these analytics and think tanks should be cleaning toilets instead. Also there is a line in that backing crossing which may lead to an all out nuclear war. Rational countries that matter understandably do not want to test it unless their existence is really threatened. |
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| ▲ | slv77 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | North Korea had enough conventional artillery to level Seoul with an estimated 1M casualties. That was why Clinton decided against attacking North Korea as they moved towards building the bomb: https://nationalinterest.org/blog/reboot/north-koreas-artill... Iran’s deterrent was/is through its proxies (Hamas, Hezbollah, Houthis) along with its sizable missile inventory, anti-air capabilities and strategic threats to oil and gas exports. Israel’s investment in missile defense and the outcome of the Oct 7th attacks severely weakened Iran’s deterrence to a conventional attack. I think the lesson should be that any nation that has enough conventional leverage to deter an attack could choose to build nuclear weapons. Nuclear weapons may complement, but can’t displace other capabilities. The US has nuclear weapons but that didn’t deter Iran from launching direct attacks on US troops in the Middle East or sponsoring insurgents in Iraq.
Nuclear weapons are also essential worthless against non nation-state actors such as Al-Qaeda. | | |
| ▲ | b33j0r 35 minutes ago | parent [-] | | I have become much more skeptical about DNK’s artillery after seeing the results of a frontline air-superiority stalemate in Ukraine and the Israeli campaign against Iran. If South Korea’s coalition could establish air superiority over the DMZ and artillery range in the first moves, I think it takes you from “Seoul destroyed” to a “pretty average modern conflict.” Hot take for sure, but war has changed. |
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| ▲ | tome 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > Libya, Syria, Iraq gave up their WMD projects eventually got bombed/attacked That's ahistorical in the case of Syria and Iraq. Israel destroyed the nascent nuclear weapons programmes of Syria and Iraq, just as it has done to Iran's. Syria and Iraq did not give up those programmes willingly. | |
| ▲ | lonelyasacloud 9 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > You lack that deterrent you get attacked, as simple as that. Libya, Syria, Iraq gave up their WMD projects eventually got bombed/attacked. Or had them, and then gave them up because they were under the impression that they would be protected if they did so; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukraine_and_weapons_of_mass_de... | |
| ▲ | ashoeafoot 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | All those countries would have plunged into internal turmoil after arab spring - us involvement or not - so Isis, hezbullah or al quaida with nukes would be the news now. | |
| ▲ | JKCalhoun 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > Libya, Syria, Iraq gave up their WMD projects eventually got bombed/attacked. By your logic, I am a little surprised Iran is still even a state then. | |
| ▲ | ben_w 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > That's speculation. Since you name NK that's a clear example of a country having nuclear deterrent actually saving the region from a conflict. So, I have an honest (non rhetorical) question: Was NK saved more by having their own nukes, or by sharing a land border with China who has nukes and doesn't want the US getting involved in the area? | | |
| ▲ | dummydummy1234 3 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | North Korea deterrent has always been the amount of artillery 50 km from soul. Nuclear weapons can target, the US based on the region, sure. But NK does not need nukes to reduce the south Korean capital to rubble. | |
| ▲ | amelius 7 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | I have a question: why did China allow NK to develop nukes? |
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| ▲ | gcanyon 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > Since you name NK that's a clear example of a country having nuclear deterrent actually saving the region from a conflict. How has the situation been better in the twenty years NK has had nuclear weapons than the fifty years after the Korean war and before NK got nukes? | |
| ▲ | compsciphd 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | why do you view nukes as the ultimate deterrent? Israel has nukes and it gets attacked. This proves the above is a logical fallacy. | |
| ▲ | gcanyon 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | South Africa gave up actual nuclear weapons and didn't get attacked. I think tying the "got attacked" back to "gave up their nuclear program" bit requires justification. | |
| ▲ | 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | [deleted] | |
| ▲ | contrarian1234 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | But why a nuclear bomb? I never understood the logic.. (or maybe it's the theatric element?) There are other WMD that seem much simpler. If they hypothetically release some horrible biological agent in Israel - it could incapacitate the country overnight Or set off a dirty bomb to make huge regions unlivable (just the perception of radiation risk would preclude many from living there.. see Fukushima) | |
| ▲ | quonn 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > You lack that deterrent you get attacked, as simple as that No you don't, unless you're a dictatorship (including all the examples you gave). | | | |
| ▲ | scotty79 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > On one side it is clear that no country should give up their WMD projects. That sounds insane. I don't think world would be more peaceful if every country under every government had WMDs. We'd be in the middle of nuclear winter now if that was the case. You could draw analogies to everyone owning a gun. We know it just ends up with many more dead and nothing being more peaceful. > Since you name NK that's a clear example of a country having nuclear deterrent actually saving the region from a conflict. He's wrong. What protects North Korea is that it's poor, has no natural resources and devastated human capital and neither attacks anyone with terrorist attacks nor credibly prophesies their intent to kill any nation or ethnicity. If they did that, they'd be steamrolled already. WMDs or not. | |
| ▲ | moltude 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Add Ukraine to that list. | |
| ▲ | BrandoElFollito 8 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Ukraine is another example from a different area |
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| ▲ | dreghgh 11 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| > This is probably what happens when your government isn't very competent and you don't have mathematicians doing game theoretic simulations for you? Religious government or not, Iran has plenty of engineers, statisticians, scientists and intelligence analysts working for their foreign policy and war effort. Your underestimating this betrays prejudice. |
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| ▲ | Gud 11 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | But clearly all these smart people are not involved in the decision making, considering how Iran’s foreign policy has looked like, exactly how parent described. | | |
| ▲ | diggan 7 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | > clearly all these smart people are not involved in the decision making Why not? Smart people can make decisions that look weird from the outside. The foreign policy of the US been looking weird for decades to most outside parties, yet I'm sure there are smart people involved in it on a daily basis. But even with smart people involved, the US been invading countries based on false premises more than once, not sure why it would need to be different for Iran or any other country. | |
| ▲ | dreghgh 11 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Compare military spending by Saudi Arabia, Israel, Egypt and the United States (only Middle East related) with Iranian military spending, over the four decades of Iran's shadow wars with these countries and isolation by much of the rest of the world. And yet Iranian proxies have repeatedly challenged these powers across the Middle East, in Yemen, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Palestine, Sinai, etc. And a lot of Iran's actions have broad support in many other Middle Eastern countries, including strong US allies, those where there are no natural ethnic, religious or linguistic ties to Iran, and where there is prosperity based on peace and the American world order. Whatever else the Iranian govt are, they are not foreign policy under-hitters or flawed tacticians blinded by dogmatism. | | |
| ▲ | reissbaker 9 hours ago | parent [-] | | On the contrary: at this point all of that spending appears to have been a waste. Hezbollah neutralized, Syria regime-changed, Gaza in tatters, and now they've lost their nuclear program. Imagine if they'd spent the money on education, or developing their economy. They could easily have reconciled with the U.S. if they stopped chanting "Death to America" and done something productive with their time and money. This was the inevitable result of their plans, and easily predictable. | | |
| ▲ | dreghgh 8 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | I'm not sure you know much about Iran. They did spend a lot of the oil revenue on both education and developing their economy. Compare them perhaps to Saudi Arabia, a similar sized country with much more oil and much fewer people. Saudi does not have any industry, does not export anything except hydrocarbons. All the extraction is done by foreign engineers. Iran educates engineers, including many foreign students, has industry outside of oil, and largely works its own drilling and refinery. The Iranian economy is not dependent on migrant labor. Saudi pays billions to Europe and America for high tech weaponry, yet can't defeat the Houthis. A considerable proportion of the money goes to baksheesh both for the Saudis themselves and their western suppliers. If Saudi decided tomorrow to challenge its Western backers in any real way, the umbrella would be withdrawn and the guys in the solid gold cars would last about a week. Iran has wreaked havoc throughout the region for 40 years by putting $30 rifles, $200 RPGs, $100 IEDs and now, $2000 drones in the right (wrong) hands at the right time. They haven't lost a regular soldier in battle since the 1980s. Even if you're calling the end of Iranian influence in the region right now, it's still an incredible run of hitting above one's weight. The only country in the Middle East this can be compared with is Israel, who are themselves legendary for hyper-insightful tactical leverage. | | |
| ▲ | jimbob45 7 hours ago | parent [-] | | I’ve seen this Iranian engineer myth perpetuated ad nauseum on every social network for the last 24 hours and never before that, as if a desperate attempt to repaint the country as anything but a failed state. The reality is that Iran has been propped up by China and Russia for decades and has wasted all of its incoming capital on weapons and kickbacks rather than doing anything to boost its domestic situation. | | |
| ▲ | kevinventullo 4 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Having lived in the U.S. my entire life, I’ve worked closely with many Iranian-born and -educated mathematicians, computer scientists, and software engineers. To OP’s point, I’ve never encountered anyone from Saudi Arabia in those fields. | |
| ▲ | dreghgh 7 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Just because you didn't know something until 24 hours ago does not make it a myth. |
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| ▲ | netsharc 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Result 1 of 9 for "death to America". Do you like it when people quote you out of context?
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44342393 | |
| ▲ | 9 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | [deleted] |
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| ▲ | nivertech 9 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | 1. Haha, just because someone is smart/knows one thing, doesn't mean they are smart/knows everything about all things. Especially when talking about people educated in STEM, not Humanities or Philosophy 2. There are plenty of engineers, statisticians, scientists and intelligence analysts who are religious fanatics or just power hungry or want to advance in the IRGC ranks/carrier ladder. Khamene.ai is a Living God and there are many engineers, statisticians, scientists and intelligence analysts who worship this deity 3. There are also lots of engineers, statisticians, scientists and intelligence analysts who are threatened and forced to work for the IRGC. Just like it was in the Soviet Union under the Communism | | |
| ▲ | rxtexit 7 hours ago | parent [-] | | Of course you get down voted.So many delusional people on this forum that believe themselves to be experts in all domains because they get well paid to write javascript. We will just forget that von Neumann advocated for nuclear first strike based on game theory. |
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| ▲ | vixen99 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | As you say 'probably. How do you know no simulations have been explored? Or is this an assumption that events somehow prove that suggestion? Some might take issue with that. | |
| ▲ | JumpCrisscross 11 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | > Religious government or not, Iran has plenty of engineers, statisticians, scientists and intelligence analysts working for their foreign policy and war effort. Your underestimating this betrays prejudice America also has lots of brilliant people. Then we have Hegseth, Noem and the other fuck. |
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| ▲ | jandrewrogers 13 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| North Korea is a Chinese client state. As a general rule, client states are treated as extensions of the countries that control them. Iran is not a client state. |
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| ▲ | choonway 12 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | NK is more of a russian client state, not chinese. | |
| ▲ | yard2010 12 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Iran is more like a server state, it serves terror and death through their proxies. It's like a vpn of destruction. | | |
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| ▲ | bjourne an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| > What they were doing, inching towards nukes, was a horrible move. Why are you swallowing the propaganda you've been spoon-fed? "Gabbard: Iran is not currently developing nuclear weapons" https://jewishinsider.com/2025/03/gabbard-iran-is-not-curren... |
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| ▲ | alkyon 13 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| If anything, the lack of competence is on the other side. Was enriched uranium destroyed? I doubt it. Have they even "obliterated" Fordow site buried 90 m deep inside the mountain? I have serious doubts. Iran's nuclear program was set back some months if anything. |
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| ▲ | birn559 13 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Care to elaborate? A random person doubting things doesn't help other people or bringing a discussion forward. | | |
| ▲ | fifilura 12 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | I agree with the gp. Iran is a huge country and USA and Israel has been pointing their finger on this exakt spot for weeks. Either they dug further down or they just transported things away. Leaving it all there just seems like a really weird thing to do. | | |
| ▲ | whilenot-dev 11 hours ago | parent [-] | | > transported things away This implies a tunnel system, or was this transport done in plain sight? | | |
| ▲ | perihelions 9 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | There's indeed a lot of transport happening in plain sight, https://www.twz.com/news-features/u-s-has-attacked-irans-nuc... > "Prior to tonight’s airstrikes on the three Iranian nuclear-associated facilities, Maxar collected high-resolution satellite imagery on June 19th and June 20th of the Fordow fuel enrichment facility that revealed unusual truck and vehicular activity near the entrance to the underground military complex. On June 19th, a group of 16 cargo trucks were positioned along the access road that leads to the tunnel entrance of the facility. Subsequent imagery on June 20th revealed that most of the trucks had repositioned approximately one kilometer northwest along the access road; however, additional trucks and several bulldozers were seen near the entrance to the main facility and one truck was positioned immediately next to the main tunnel entrance." | |
| ▲ | yehoshuapw 10 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | there actually are images of lots of movement there - so perhaps plain sight is the right answer. hopefully I am wrong |
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| ▲ | motorest 13 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > Care to elaborate? A random person doubting things doesn't help other people or bringing a discussion forward. I don't know if you noticed, but what you are arguing for is in fact for mindlessly accepting unverified claims and extrapolate them to an optimal outcome. This is the opposite of critical thinking, and goes well beyond wishful thinking. Meanwhile, if you pay attention to OP's point, you'll understand that Iran's nuclear sites have been continuously designed and developed for decades, while subjected to an almost evolutionary pressure, to continue operations even after withstanding direct attacks in scenarios matching exactly Trump's attacks. In the very least, you must assess the effect of those strikes before making any sort of claim. Another factor which it seems you somehow missed was the fact that Russia, another nuclear-capable totalitarian regime, is nowadays heavily dependent on Iran to conduct it's imperialist agenda. If Russia was negotiating handing over nuclear capabilities to North Korea in exchange for supporting it's war effort, do you believe Russia now has no interest to speed up Iran's nuclear weapons programmes? | | |
| ▲ | 01100011 12 hours ago | parent [-] | | Weird that Iran, an oil exporter with huge potential for solar, would expend so much energy on protecting a purportedly civilian nuclear program. I'm sure it's nothing. This isn't really relevant but I'm only making one comment in this post so I'll say it here: young folks don't remember decades of Iranian state sponsored terrorism and do not understand the context of conflict in the middle east. | | |
| ▲ | youngtaff 10 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Sooner or later they’re going to run oil of oil and gas | |
| ▲ | oa335 9 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | > context of conflict in the middle east. Conflict in the Middle East is entirely rooted in Israeli ethnic cleansing campaigns and western adventurism and protections of Israeli interests. If Iran went away tomorrow, the region would still have massive support for violent movements targeting Israel. |
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| ▲ | m000 9 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | To be frank, it wouldn't be a surprise for Trump to claim "total obliteration" while having achieved nothing substantial. This would also be a very convenient way to break the current impasse: Trump can claim victory and brag about US weapons, Iranians can continue their program virtually unscathed, perhaps after bombing some minor evacuated US base for show. After the dust settles, Iran can withdraw fron NNPT and the next day have Pakistan ship them a bomb. Peace (via MAD) achieved! Maybe we should even give Donald his Nobel prize for that. |
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| ▲ | herbst 12 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > No increase in radiation levels have been detected, the UN's nuclear watchdog says I guess means no. However I have no idea what they would say if they did. "Yes we poisoned the whole area for generations to come, success!" | |
| ▲ | KevinCarbonara 12 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | I don't know that it can be confirmed, but Iran is claiming that the US tipped them off. This is a fairly standard tactic, and it makes more sense here. This is something that would satisfy both the pro-war crowd and the group that is pro-Israel or anti-Iran, but not necessarily pro-war. We get to show our strength and support for our allies without really committing. | |
| ▲ | hackerknew 12 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Even if it is only set back by a few months, that is enough time to put pressure on Iran to abandon it altogether. Keep in mind, Israel has full aerial control over Iran and has taken out hundreds of their missile launchers. We can keep pounding the various nuclear facilities and hinder ant chances of rebuilding, making any effort futile. | | |
| ▲ | disgruntledphd2 12 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | This would be a really risky strategy as it will push the Iranians into a corner with potentially large impacts on the oil price (which will change US public opinion). | | |
| ▲ | dotancohen 12 hours ago | parent [-] | | That sounds to me like the US seriously needs to promote non-petroleum sources of energy. If not for the environment, for their own national sovereignity. | | |
| ▲ | dreghgh 11 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | The thing is, the United States is self sufficient in petroleum. But domestic prices will go up to reflect the effect on world supply. Arguably the same could happen given widespread use of non petroleum sources of energy. Prices will go up to reflect the marginal cost of hydrocarbon based energy, even if that use is minimal, until the point where the energy network is completely decoupled from those markets. This happened in the United Kingdom after the invasion of Ukraine. More wind was used as gas became more expensive. But the price of electricity from wind also went up. | | |
| ▲ | chgs 10 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | US could ban fuel exports. Unlikely as rich people would suffer, but they may be placated with bribes. | |
| ▲ | disgruntledphd2 8 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | The UK increase was because of how the contracts work but yeah agreed in general. Sustainable energy is good for a bunch of non environmental reasons. |
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| ▲ | adastra22 11 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | The US is a net oil exporter. | | | |
| ▲ | spacecadet 10 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Yeah, but good luck! Been trying to convince people of this for years... |
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| ▲ | Ygg2 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | As Sun Tzu famously said: "You really should back your enemy in a corner and ask them for negotiations. Having someone's feet on hot coals really speeds it up. And if they break it, it's a case for using nukes against them. " Such advanced people, the Chinese are. | |
| ▲ | UncleMeat 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | "Don't worry, we can just engage in a bombing campaign against a foreign nation indefinitely." |
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| ▲ | nmca 13 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | How do you purport to know this? | | |
| ▲ | hajile 6 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Fordow is widely reported to be significantly deeper than GBU-57 can penetrate (which is just 60 meters). The only way they penetrate is landing two of them in the exact same hole (think Robin Hood splitting an arrow with another arrow). Off by just a little and it winds up with it's own separate 60m hole. CEP with GPS for our most accurate glide bombs is 5 meters. But GPS jamming is cheap and easy and the best precision we get in that case is 30 meters CEP. GPU-57 gets its power from gravity. Reaching that 60 meter maximum penetration requires dropping the bomb from maximum elevation, but without GPS, that further increases the CEP. With just 6 bombs, it seems unlikely that they could reliably penetrate. Actual penetration would likely require nuclear penetrators, but those also break the nuclear prohibition and open Pandora's box in places like Ukraine. A great example of the problem is Yemen. We tried to get the Houthi to stop by dropping bunker busters on their tunnel systems and completely failed. We were forced to reach a ceasefire agreement (one that likely went up in smoke last night). | |
| ▲ | coffeebeqn 13 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | The layout of Fordow from what we’ve seen is not a single site. Depending on how many runs they did maybe it is all but destroyed or maybe it’s 1/3 destroyed. I’m sure Israel’s intelligence on it is pretty accurate (probably not public at this point) |
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| ▲ | stickfigure 13 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | I'm willing to bet that the Americans can build another one of those GBU-57 bombs every some months if they had to. | |
| ▲ | adventured 13 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | The US, Israel and possibly Britain will install a no-fly zone over Iran. Israel is going to be entirely unwilling to allow Iran to go right back to building again what just got destroyed. This was a once in decades shot for Israel to take against Iran, in its very weakened state (with its proxies out of commission, Syria knocked over, and Russia very preoccupied). They'll attempt the post Gulf War I approach against Iraq (as an invasion will never be on the table). Sanctions and no-fly zone. They'll retain control over Iran's sky and in doing so will be free to bomb as they see fit if Iran attempts to build or re-start something like Fordow. If they attempt to install new air defenses, they'll simply bomb them. Whether that one bombing took care of Fordow is going to be moot, they'll hit it ten more times if that's what it takes, and destroy anything that attempts to move in or out of there. Israel can't maintain a no-fly zone over Iran so the US will be enlisted to do the heavy lifting on that. | | |
| ▲ | 400thecat 13 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | aiding regime change would be much easier, and would solve all these problems better. At some point in the next few days, the regime will be so weakened that the Iranian people will overthrow it themselves | | |
| ▲ | dreghgh 11 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Yes, this was also said about Iraq in 1991. | | |
| ▲ | adastra22 11 hours ago | parent [-] | | The US negotiators in Iraq in ‘91 stupidly didn’t enforce a total no-fly zone, allowing the use of helicopters by the regime. Saddam used helicopter gunships to mow down the would-be revolutionaries attempting regime change. Israel won’t make the same mistake. | | |
| ▲ | dreghgh 11 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | 91 also happened in a brief period where Russia was holding back from supplying end-of-line military hardware to anyone who wanted to take a shot at the United States and its clients. | |
| ▲ | Gonkdd 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | [dead] |
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| ▲ | UncleMeat 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | In one month if the Iranian government has not been overthrown by its own people what will you do? Will you change your beliefs or will the goalpost move? | |
| ▲ | adventured 13 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | The IRGC is unlikely to let the regime fall so easily. They'll kill a lot of Iranians to stop that from happening. The Iranian people have limited means to fight at present. The no-fly zone and sanctions approach will be used to attempt to strangle the regime over the coming years. It'll take a small miracle for the regime to fall anytime soon, it's not that weak yet (imo) despite what the propaganda is claiming. | | |
| ▲ | 400thecat 10 hours ago | parent [-] | | Israel can bomb the IRGC and Basij bases, police and prisons (release political prisoners). They can collapse the regime, restrict its movement, eliminate chain of command. From there the Iranian people can raise and topple the regime | | |
| ▲ | TheAlchemist 7 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | This is quite interesting to me - how long can Isreal really continue with such intensity ? The distance between Israel and Iran is huge - it must be extremely expensive to operate the air bridge allowing their air force to operate as it did last week. But I would be really surprised if they can go on like that for a month. | |
| ▲ | disgruntledphd2 8 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | This seems wildly implausible. I've never heard of this happening as the result of foreign attacks. And also, any new regime is very unlikely to be more pro Israel or the US. |
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| ▲ | tharmas 13 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Overthrow and get what? Another Libya? |
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| ▲ | foldr 7 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | I’d be somewhat skeptical of how much can be achieved just by bombing. It didn’t do much to stop the Nazi war machine in WWII. We have better munitions now, but we also have a lot fewer of them, and the US public won’t tolerate 121,000 dead airmen, either. | | |
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| ▲ | heresie-dabord 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| With all due respect, please reconsider these points: > This is probably what happens when your government isn't very competent Well now we should all be terrified. > Theocracy with nukes screams nuke them first You should reflect on the religious elements prominently at play within these belligerent states. I deplore kakistocracy of any stripe, but it is obvious that dictatorships and dictatorship-curious regimes of any sort are an existential threat. |
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| ▲ | dlahoda 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| it took nk 40+ years to get nukes.
is this definion of inching? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Korea_and_weapons_of_m... also you say nk uses nukes as deterrent, deterrent from whom?
if they deterred any, they were fine deterring it for 40+ years without. |
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| ▲ | elif 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| All the intelligence says they weren't building nukes, but all the sudden we are to believe the narrative provided by a prolific liar who can't even articulate what it is that he wants Iran to do? Israel started bombing Iran and they returned fire. Is trump asking the largest economic and military power in the region to sit by idle as Israel sends missiles and bombs daily? He won't clarify even when asked directly. I don't think we have any reason to believe his narrative if he can't even explain it himself. I would also like to add that Trump himself is the one who removed IAEA inspectors from routine inspections of Iran, so occams razor would suggest this ambiguity is by design. |
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| ▲ | 15155 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | > All the intelligence says they weren't building nukes > IAEA inspectors What are some good reasons for producing >60% HEU? |
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| ▲ | FilosofumRex 12 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Israel defines itself as a "jewish" state, and at least 50% of members of current governing parties in parliament are from religious parties and zionist parties. In what sense Israel is not a theocracy. |
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| ▲ | 9dev 12 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Maybe the fact that every single one of these representatives has been appointed in a fair democratic vote? | | |
| ▲ | tsimionescu 12 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Iran became a theocracy through a popular uprising, too. Democracy and theocracy are quite compatible, as long as the people are religious enough. | | |
| ▲ | 9dev 12 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | That would mean the USA are a theocracy too, given most senators are Christian. That doesn’t make too much sense. Theocracy is a form of government in which religious leaders rule in the name of a deity, and religious law is the basis for all legal and political decisions. | | |
| ▲ | tsimionescu 11 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | The USA is not a theocracy, though. The majority-Christian senators are not generally enacting theocratic laws and regulations (though there are some tendencies and influences, as seen with the recent repeal of Roe v Wade, for example). However, Israel does have highly theocratic tendencies. Their constitution places Jewish identity on the same level as their democratic statute. They have even more religious influence on public life than the USA does (which is already somewhat high by European standards), with businesses in many cities being boycotted into respecting the Sabbath and other religious holidays (not selling risen bread during Passover, making elevators stop automatically on every floor during days of rest, observing kosher restrictions on food etc). Many of their foreign policy decisions are explicitly influenced by religious tenets, such as believing they were gifted the "land of Israel" by their god (which includes modern day Israel, the Occupied Territories, and several parts of modern day Syria, Lebanon, and others). They're nowhere near the level of religous rule and/or fanaticism as Saudi Arabia, but they have much more religious influence and control of public life then a modern European/US-style democracy. | | |
| ▲ | 9dev 9 hours ago | parent [-] | | > The USA is not a theocracy, though. Hence I brought it up, yes. > Their constitution places Jewish identity on the same level as their democratic statute. Many reputable democracies[1], including Germany, Australia, Norway or Switzerland, have a reference to god in their constitution; that doesn't make them theocracies. Even in the USA, presidents swear their oath on the bible! > businesses in many cities being boycotted into respecting the Sabbath and other religious holidays Try purchasing something on a Christian holiday in Germany. Did you know it's prohibited by law to play Life of Brian in public on Easter Sunday there? > such as believing they were gifted the "land of Israel" by their god That in turn isn't government directive, but a political opinion amongst several. Now I'm very much in opposition to a lot of what the Israeli government does, but they're really not what the term Theocracy means. That claim is just ridiculous. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitutional_references_to_G... | | |
| ▲ | tsimionescu 6 hours ago | parent [-] | | > Many reputable democracies[1], including Germany, Australia, Norway or Switzerland, have a reference to god in their constitution None of these say that their states are Christian and Democratic, nor do they have government decisions finding that this means anything at all. In Israel, by contrast, their highest court has found that, for example, a right to return for Palestinians would be unconstitutional - as it would undermine the Jewish character of the state of Israel. A reference to some god in their constitution would be a completely different thing. > That in turn isn't government directive, but a political opinion amongst several. This is an extreme downplaying of what I said. Several of the people in charge of the Israeli government have explicitly and exclusively, religious motivations in their decision making - that is a very clear sign of a form of theocracy. |
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| ▲ | 11 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | [deleted] | |
| ▲ | otikik 12 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | You… don’t see it? | |
| ▲ | 11 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | [deleted] | |
| ▲ | rf15 12 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | m8 they literally swear on the bible /s |
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| ▲ | baxtr 11 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | This is not how it played out if you talk to Iranians. They will tell you that the theocracy folks were a small minority of the entire resistance and first built a government of unity. Once in charge they started annihilating all other opposition factions one by one. | |
| ▲ | motorest 12 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | > Iran became a theocracy through a popular uprising, too. OP referred to democratic votes, whereas you talk about "popular uprising". Can you explain in your own words why you believe these are even comparable? | | |
| ▲ | brabel 11 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Most people in the West seem to believe the removal of democratically elected, pro-Russia President Viktor Yanukovych in Ukraine after a popular uprising in 2014 was somehow democratic. That should show that depending on who is being ousted and your opinion on them, yes the two things can be comparable. | | |
| ▲ | motorest 11 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | > Most people in the West seem to believe the removal of democratically elected, pro-Russia President Viktor Yanukovych in Ukraine (...) You should seriously learn about Yanukovych before making any sort of claim regarding him. He was elected based on an enthusiastically pro-EU and pro-western programme, only to turn out to be a Russian puppet that not only enforced policies completely contrary to his programme but also pushed Ukraine into a dictatorship. The "popular uprising" you glance over was actually months of demonstrations protesting Yanukovych unilateral rejection of the EU–Ukraine association agreement as ordered by Russia, which he campaigned and was elected for and contrary to Ukraine's parliament overwhelming approval. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euromaidan You're talking about the same Yanukovych who felt compelled to exile in Russia. > That should show that depending on who is being ousted (...) Those who favour freedom under democracies are indeed partial against dictators who try to destroy democratic states and deny people's rights, specially if it to serve the interests of other totalitarian regimes. | | |
| ▲ | lenkite 10 hours ago | parent [-] | | And all your arguments don't matter. He was a legally elected President - whose election was even EU Vetted by many, many observers and found to be completely valid. He could have been overthrown in the next elections and if that had happened, the Russian ethnic regions wouldn't have rebelled. You would have yet another corrupt Ukrainian President and no-one would have batted an eye. Life would have just continued as usual. But the US was far too eager to carry out regime change and so we have the dreadful situation today. | | |
| ▲ | 9dev 10 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | That is an awful retelling of history. There was no revolution in Ukraine, but protests and demonstrations that were brutally crushed by government forces. The people persevered though and the president fled the country, leading to a formal and correct process of electing a new government after. The US didn’t have anything more to do with this. | | |
| ▲ | lenkite 10 hours ago | parent [-] | | > The US didn’t have anything more to do with this. Only if one is utterly blind and put fingers in their ears, can one truly believe that. Nuland's call was leaked where she was proudly deciding who would form the next government in Ukraine and who should be kept on the outside. And her personal choice of puppet: "Yats" did in-fact become the prime minister. Nuland was even handing out cookies to anti-Yanukovych protests for Christ's sake. Mc Cain actually flew in and congratulated the protesters. Imagine if that was happening in the US against a US President - members of foreign nation's government cheering on a coup and deciding who would be the next President. There would be Absolute War. | | |
| ▲ | 9dev 8 hours ago | parent [-] | | For those reading this and doubting: Read the call transcript for yourself, annotated by Jonathan Marcus of the BBC: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-26079957 Yes, the USA is attempting to facilitate talks here. No, that does not mean they have "decided" who is going to form the next government. That claim is just Russian propaganda. | | |
| ▲ | lenkite 8 hours ago | parent [-] | | I also fully support not just reading the call transcript, but also listening to the leaked call so you get Nuland's firm tone. I would reserve very skeptical judgement on the "annotations". Those weren't part of the call. Listen to: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LUCCR4jAS3Y > No, that does not mean they have "decided" who is going to form the next government. That claim is just Russian propaganda Anyone with a rational brain who separates themselves from biases and emotions and carefully listens to the call would realize there is no propaganda involved here. Also, for better clarity of judgement, please perform a thought exercise and consider what would happen if a foreign government's members were discussing the personal choices , makeup and "talks" for members of the next American government. | | |
| ▲ | mopsi 7 hours ago | parent [-] | | > please perform a thought exercise and consider what would happen if a foreign government's members were discussing the personal choices , makeup and "talks" for members of the next American government. We can discuss potential successors to Xi right here on HN, and an outsider might say that "a forum frequented by Silicon Valley billionaires is picking the next leader of China". But that would be a huge misrepresentation of us and our influence. The fixation of Russian trolls on that single phone call reeks of desperation. During election season, I'd expect hundreds of such calls to be happening at any given moment between various officials, strategists, financiers, candidates, analysts, and many other people. |
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| ▲ | stavros 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | But the GP is not saying the election wasn't valid, they're saying the guy was misrepresenting himself. I hate the US meddling as much as the next guy, but why is the solution to that problem "just endure four years of destruction until he leaves"? | | |
| ▲ | lenkite 10 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | All politicians "mispresent themselves". Kicking them out during elections is the way they are thrown out in a functioning democracy. Or do you believe Americans should storm the White House and beat up the President anytime a campaign promise is broken ? And one that is magnified by the funding and urging of a foreign government ? Such actions - which break the "deal of democracy" naturally lead to civil war - which is exactly what happened in Ukraine. | | |
| ▲ | stavros 10 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | I don't care what Americans do, but I'd quite like to storm our parliament and kick out the current government. | |
| ▲ | motorest an hour ago | parent | prev [-] | | > All politicians "mispresent themselves". No. The ones that try to push agendas that go against their programme and are deeply unpopular will often see public protests and even general strikes demanding policy reversals or governments stepping down. Do you call those regime changes as well? |
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| ▲ | tsimionescu 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | I'm not 100% sure of Ukraine, but most democracies have a legal way to impeach a sitting president. If Yanukovich was committing literal treason, acting on behalf of a foreign country, there should have been a slam dunk case for impeachment. | | |
| ▲ | stavros 5 hours ago | parent [-] | | Our government killed 50 people in a train accident because they couldn't be bothered to maintain the safety systems, then immediately ordered crews to the site to cover everything up with dirt so there would be no trace of fuel additives being illegally transported on a passenger train. The courts found no wrongdoing, and they're still in power. Who's going to impeach them? |
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| ▲ | spacecadet 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | I agree with you. | |
| ▲ | m000 9 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | > they're saying the guy was misrepresenting himself You mean like "peacemaker"/"America First" Donald Trump? > why is the solution to that problem "just endure four years of destruction until he leaves"? If Americans can wait out for the second Trump term to be over, Ukrainians could do it too for Yanukovych. | | |
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| ▲ | motorest 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > And all your arguments don't matter. He was a legally elected President - whose election was even EU Vetted by many, many observers and found to be completely valid. Yes, he was. What you are leaving out is the fact that in spite of being elected based on an enthusiastically pro-EU platform, it turned out he was a Russian agent and betrayed his mandate to enforce Kremlin's anti-west agenda and force himself upon Ukraine as another kremlin-controlled dictatorship. Except the people of Ukraine wanted none of that and protested against this betrayal, which culminated in the wannabe dictator seeking exile in Russia. Somehow you leave this out when you talk about basic democratic principles. Why is that? Is it out of sheer ignorance? What's also very odd is the way that you somehow try to portray anti-government protests as revolutions and regime changes, when this is a Hallmark of any democratic system: when a government doesn't follow through with their compromise and go directly against their mandate and people's will, they express their discontent and demand elections. How odd that when democracies reject Russia's interference, this is deemed as an anti-democratic coup. | |
| ▲ | Narretz 9 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | There's no way of knowing that Russia wouldn't have incited the "rebellions" anyway. Once the writing was on the wall that the majority of Ukrainians didn't want to be Russia's puppets, Putin would likely have acted one way or the other. Why take chances? | |
| ▲ | inglor_cz 9 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | "He could have been overthrown in the next elections" Let me see if Erdogan can be overthrown in the next elections in Turkey. No US involvement either. If you live in a stable Western country, your trust in the next elections being fair and free is understandable, but in that case, refrain from any authoritative talk ("your arguments don't matter") about other places. In recent democracies that transitioned from totalitarian rule just a decade or two ago, elections are far easier to hijack than in the UK or Denmark. "no-one would have batted an eye" You cannot really make such a strong prediction about places like Ukraine, the Balkans, the Middle East etc. These are places where empires collide, and several crises in a century are almost a given. Anyway I am fairly glad that Ukraine didn't end up like Belarus did, a satellite state of Moscow. Anything is better than becoming a satellite state of Moscow. Most of us from behind the Iron Curtain would rather fight a war than submit to Moscow again. Interestingly, the Western leftists, who otherwise preach anti-colonialism from breakfast to sunset and then some, don't understand the same dynamic among white-majority nations. But it is still there. | | |
| ▲ | lenkite 9 hours ago | parent [-] | | Did you somehow magically miss the part where Yanukovych's election was extensively observed and vetted by the EU and several other international bodies ? The EU’s own delegation — alongside the OSCE and other bodies — stated that the election was "free, fair, and transparent". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Ukrainian_presidential_el... "Over 700 observers from EU member states participated, in addition to OSCE/ODIHR, the EU Parliament, PACE, and other international delegations" The Guardian reported EU-led observers praised the vote as "fair and truly competitive" noting only "minor irregularities” that did not affect overall results". "After the second round of the election international observers and the OSCE called the election transparent and honest." https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/feb/08/viktor-yanukov... | | |
| ▲ | inglor_cz 8 hours ago | parent [-] | | "Did you somehow magically miss the part" Could you tone down your arrogance, please? I was talking about the next election. You expressed your conviction that Yanukovich could be removed in the next election, remember? I expressed my doubt about iron-cladness of such future election. Strongmen-like leaders in fresh democracies have a lot of methods how to win next elections without actually winning them. | | |
| ▲ | lenkite 8 hours ago | parent [-] | | Ok, but I am really incredulous now - If he won the next election even after extensive vetting by EU and a plethora of international observers who called the elections "fair and transparent", then he has completely won the seat of the Presidency. On what basis does your personal opinion overrule the result of democracy ? | | |
| ▲ | mopsi 7 hours ago | parent [-] | | The fact that someone won elections doesn't mean they get to stay until the end of their term no matter what they do. Yanukovych had over 100 people killed in a violent crackdown on protests, then fled to Russia as he was about to be imprisoned. On 21 February 2014, the Ukrainian parliament voted 328-0 to hold snap elections to replace Yanukovych before the end of his term. Not a single member of his own party supported him or voted against the decision. He was replaced through general elections held a few months later. This is exactly how parliamentary democracy is supposed to work. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snap_election | | |
| ▲ | lenkite 6 hours ago | parent [-] | | Sure, by that time the coup was successful. Anyone in Kyiv who objected to it would face arrest and incarceration themselves. The vote did not follow formal impeachment procedure under Article 111 of the Ukrainian Constitution (which requires a Constitutional Court review and more formal steps). I am sure you then have no objections to the 53–0 vote in Crimea to remove the then-Ukrainian-appointed prime minister Anatoly Mogilev and install Sergei Aksyonov and the subsequent referendum on autonomy. After all, this is "exactly how parliamentary democracy is supposed to work". | | |
| ▲ | mopsi 5 hours ago | parent [-] | | The vote by the parliament did follow formal procedures: not those of an impeachment, because the president was not impeached, but those of snap elections, as the parliament chose to replace the government through elections. In terms of legitimacy, general elections trump over everything else. A coup is commonly defined as an illegitimate seizure of power by a small group. General elections are the polar opposite, the furthest thing from a coup. Regarding the Crimean referendum, I do have objections: international law considers referendums held under foreign military occupation illegitimate, and rightfully so. Had Hitler staged a referendum in occupied Paris after the invasion, would that have meant that the French willingly joined the Third Reich? The Crimean referendum is nothing new. In the 1940s, the USSR also staged a series of votes to legitimize their invasions of European nations. At this point, I would consider anyone expecting me to take these referendums seriously as either severely underinformed or simply maliciously trolling. |
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| ▲ | WesolyKubeczek 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Yes it was. Democracy is not only about casting your vote once every few years and then shutting up and staying put, it’s also about holding your elected representatives accountable. | |
| ▲ | 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | [deleted] | |
| ▲ | 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | [deleted] | |
| ▲ | lawn 10 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | How nice of you to insert some Russian bullshit narrative into the discussion. |
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| ▲ | tsimionescu 11 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Because both are representations of the rule and self-determination of the people. Popular uprisings are comparable to direct voting in terms of expressing the power of the people (though of course have other major differences in terms of violence, rule of law, etc). | | |
| ▲ | motorest 11 hours ago | parent [-] | | > Because both are representations of the rule and self-determination of the people. No, not really. Having a radical group remove another totalitarian ruler doesn't automatically grant them legitimacy or any arguments involving "self determination of people". |
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| ▲ | UncleMeat 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Is it a fair democratic vote when a very substantial number of the people that Israel claims are residents cannot participate in this vote? | |
| ▲ | ngcazz 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | your selective definition of democracy accommodates a country - whose Basic Law 2018 declared it a Jewish supremacist state - where 50% of the population doesn't have the right to vote, land ownership, or travel on the same roads - and faces 99% conviction rates in military, not civil, courts - where parties can be banned directly by government decision if it arbitrarily deems them to be anti-Jewish | | |
| ▲ | samjones33 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | The problems of Israeli democracy are not the ones you list. The fundamental issue is the population of the West Bank, who, outside of Palestinian Authority areas (aka "Area A"), are largely controlled by Israel but cannot vote. Note that 1-2 million West Bank Palestinians live in Area A under the Palestinian Authority. - Within Israel, there is a Communist Party (which rejects religion and ethnicity) and other parties (including two Arab parties). - A key problem in Israeli democracy, which it would be helpful if you noted, is that although there are two Arab parties (and majority Jewish parties who welcome Arabs), the Arab population of Israel votes at a low rate. This results in their being under-represented in the Knesset. - The Basic Law you refer to made zero change to who can have political power. - The 50% you refer to is neither the right percentage, nor does it take into account areas of great Palestinian autonomy. - Function of the legal system has never been relevant to who can vote or hold office. If you want to reflect what is on the ground, I suggest you take in the whole picture. |
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| ▲ | hiddencost 11 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Liar | | |
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| ▲ | dekelpilli 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | It would quite concerning if Israel had non-Zionist (read: not in favour of the existence of Israel) parties. | |
| ▲ | vixen99 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Not any longer but one might have thought of Britain as a theocracy at some point in the recent past insofar as members of the governing party would have put down Christian in the box marked Religion. On the other hand, in 2025, formal occasions in the UK usually take place in Christian cathedrals and churches. The King (albeit with no executive powers in the Government) is head of the Church of England - the 'Supreme Governor of the Church of England'. Interesting that 20% of Israelis do not believe in a deity. 18% are Muslim. In Iran, Jews are 0.03% of the population. | |
| ▲ | CactusRocket 11 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > In what sense Israel is not a theocracy. I find this very disingenuous because the person you replied to was talking only about Iran, and stating that Iran is a theocracy in their opinion. They never mentioned anything about Iran, let alone stating that Israel isn't a theocracy. So asking this question, this way, is quite strange in my opinion. | | |
| ▲ | amenhotep 9 hours ago | parent [-] | | They said "theocracy with nukes screams nuke them first". If this is true - and it is their stated position - then, since Israel has nukes, either they are not a theocracy or they are begging to be nuked. The commenter has, I think reasonably, concluded that the other commenter doesn't think Israel is begging to be nuked, and is therefore addressing the apparent contradiction. It seems entirely genuous. |
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| ▲ | motorest 11 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > Israel defines itself as a "jewish" state (...) I think the "Jewish state" refers to how the country serves as the homeland for the jewish people, not how they force a religion upon others. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_state Israel's legal definition is "Jewish and Democratic state", which explicitly ensures "complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_and_democratic_state | | |
| ▲ | CalChris 11 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | The Basic Law (their Constitution) of Israel defines it as a Jewish state. Its first page says: The Land of Israel is the historical homeland of the Jewish People, in which the State of Israel was established.
(b) The State of Israel is the nation state of the Jewish People in which it realizes its natural, cultural, religious and historical right to self-determination.
(c) The realization of the right to national self- determination in the State of Israel is exclusive to the Jewish People.
Not irrespective of religion, exclusive to the Jewish People. | | |
| ▲ | spwa4 9 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | If you have a problem with laws defining this sort of thing, you're going to have problems with the constitution of any muslim-majority country. Including ... of course Palestine. Hamas/Gaza: “The Day of Judgement will not come about until Moslems fight Jews and kill them. Then the Jews will hide behind rocks and trees, and the rocks and trees will cry out: O’ Moslem, there is a Jew hiding behind me, come and kill him,” And the west bank's government pays pensions according to how many Jews you hurt: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_Authority_Martyrs_... (No worries the "parliamentary democracy" that the WB is - hah! - promises to stop that now. Well, except for the payments) But this is a general problem with all muslim-majority nations. Take an extremely moderate one - Morocco - defines itself as: "A sovereign Muslim State, attached to its national unity and to its territorial integrity, the Kingdom of Morocco intends to preserve," | | |
| ▲ | ngcazz 6 hours ago | parent [-] | | Even if you take those statements at face value, Israel is the only apartheid country being discussed here. | | |
| ▲ | samjones33 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | Have you paid attention to who can hold power in, say, Iran? Or Saudi Arabia? Or Syria? Or Jordan? Israel isn't any more apartheid than any of those places. Given that Israeli Arabs can and do vote (and become Medical Doctors), Israel is a heck of a lot _less_ apartheid than those places. Consider travel... it can help you get outside the "american" box. | | |
| ▲ | spwa4 6 minutes ago | parent [-] | | You do realize that socialists are people who kept supporting khomeini AFTER it became clear he sent snipers, during the revolution, to attack his own people (well, the students, unions, ...) just so he could claim "zionists" killed thousands of people? Of course this government is FAR worse, including on racism, than the worst Israel has ever been accused of. It's not going to change their minds ... The current Iranian government started blaming Israel for everything long before they were even in power. Socialists supported them back then ... and largely now. Clearly, one is forced to conclude, they see no problem with such actions. |
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| ▲ | samjones33 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | I think you have not paid attention to European and Middle Eastern countries. They are all ethno states. The very concept "nation-state" is an alignment of "ethnic tribe" with "political borders" You might want to hit a history book or two. In this regard, Israel is more normal and places like the U.S. are abnormal. (Once you get outside the U.S....) |
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| ▲ | tdeck 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | With such a commitment to equality it's hard to believe policies like this slipped through https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judaization_of_the_Galilee | | |
| ▲ | gadilif 9 hours ago | parent [-] | | It's a bad law (although somewhat covered with 'good intentions', it does have a scent of racism which shouldn't exist in state laws).
However, note that the outcome was the unintentional creation of Jewish/Arabs communities in the Galilee, which actually help bring Jews and Arabs together.
It is also important to note that Arab Israelis have full rights as citizens, have representatives in the parliament and even were a part of the previous coalition. This, of course, is not the case for Palestinians in the occupied territories, and this issue MUST be resolved (one- or two-state solution, either way the current situation is unbearable).
With that, the current coalition does include extremists, and many (according to recent polls, >60%) in Israel want to see them replaced. |
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| ▲ | hiddencost 11 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Absurd. |
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| ▲ | djfivyvusn 11 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Who cares if they are? They're not out here calling for the destruction of all the Islamic states. Well, at least not the ones not already actively bombing them. |
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| ▲ | 12 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
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| ▲ | 1776smithadam 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| > you don't have mathematicians doing game theoretic simulations for you? So you're saying we're here because America has mathematicians doing game theoretic simulations and this is the best move? |
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| ▲ | simonh 13 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| It's not so much them being a theocracy IMHO. It's that they believe they have a religious duty to destroy the state of Israel. Put those Israeli shoes on. There's a state armed with ballistic missiles in easy range of you, they have the facilities necessary to enrich weapons grade Uranium, recently acquired more advanced centrifuges, they have the uranium already enriched far beyond what's necessary for civilian use, they have far more of it than they credibly need for such civilian use, and they believe god has ordered them to destroy you. How well would you sleep at night? |
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| ▲ | McAlpine5892 11 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | > It's that they believe they have a religious duty to destroy the state of Israel. And the US is full of Christo-fascists who believe they have a religious duty to "defend" Israel by any means necessary. It absolutely blows my mind that in this day and age people are taking sides on a religious war. Stay out. Stay far out. There is no winning. There is no stopping the conflict. Every side has an ordained right to blow the others off the face of the planet. The only thing to see is human atrocities as far as the eye in the name of <your god of choice>. > There's a state ... [that has] ... the facilities necessary to enrich weapons grade Uranium Do they? It's oft repeated. But I vaguely remember this country being sold on an Iraq invasion due to nukes. Nukes that never existed and never were close to existing. This wasn't a simple miscalculation. The nukes were entirely and knowingly fictional. And that's just one example of a bullshit made-up reason this nation has started a war to waste lives. How do you think Palestinians sleep at night? With the threat of Israel, funded by the largest military in the world, looming over them every night? Why should I believe my country today? Why is today the day of all days that the truth is finally being told? Why is today the day that god is real and I should jump in on the bloodshed? Your masters are lying to you, to their benefit. They didn't wake up today and decide to be honest. | | |
| ▲ | imperfect_blue 10 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | >> It's that they believe they have a religious duty to destroy the state of Israel. > And the US is full of Christo-fascists who believe they have a religious duty to "defend" Israel by any means necessary. How do you even begin to equivocate this? One wants to destroy a country, one wants to protect it from destruction. > How do you think Palestinians sleep at night? With the threat of Israel, funded by the largest military in the world, looming over them every night? Israel has never actually wanted to end the lives of every Palestinian - and they've had ample capacity to do. The reverse can't be said to be true. If there's a button that the Iraqi or Palestinian leadership that can press that would wipe out the state of Israel and everyone in it, do you think that they won't press it as fast as they can? | | |
| ▲ | oa335 9 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | > Israel has never actually wanted to end the lives of every Palestinian They clearly and openly state that they want to force Palestinians off of their land and are using violence towards that end. If there were a button to get rid of Palestinians, Israelis would “hit it twice”. https://youtu.be/BkP78hyLl4w | | |
| ▲ | samjones33 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | That is two random youtubers. You know better than to listen to rants on line... I hope! | | |
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| ▲ | LtWorf 7 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | > Israel has never actually wanted to end the lives of every Palestinian Uh? So can you explain the genocide? | | |
| ▲ | samjones33 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | Can you explain a genocide in Gaza or the West Bank both of which have growing Palestinian populations even during wartime? (If you correct for the 100K+ who left Gaza before Egypt closed its border in 2024) | | |
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| ▲ | GlacierFox 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | _How do you think Palestinians sleep at night? With the threat of Israel, funded by the largest military in the world, looming over them every night?_ Probably pretty badly now after squandering decades on building tunnels, hiding weapons and generally being a backwards fundamentalist cultish death camp. It's a mini Iran, and just as hateful. There's a reasom there's a massive security wall along the Egyptian border. They know what's up. | |
| ▲ | lokimedes 11 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Those with the spirit to strike, will always dominate those with a mind to moderate. | |
| ▲ | adastra22 11 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Israel is the only democratic country in the Middle East. Support for Israel extends beyond religious justifications. | | |
| ▲ | McAlpine5892 11 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | It's not about democracy. If it were, we wouldn't have overthrown countless democratically elected leaders throughout South America during the 20th Century. Our elected leaders constantly attempt to expand their own power. To maximally punish whistleblowers. Our election system is ran by a duopoly who exerts extreme power over those voicing alternative views and opinions. About democracy, it is not. Let's say it was though. What gives us the right to blow other countries off the face of the planet? Are we somehow so much better than everyone else because we believe we're democratic? We don't even rank in the top 10 most democratic countries. We throw more people in jail than China. Per capita AND total overall. We throw more kids in jail than any other first world country [0]. Surely, democracy does not automagically lend to treating people fairly. We have enough problems in our own damn democracy to worry about. Crazy to be starting wars to "help" someone who never asked for it. Forcing violence upon those who never consented is absolutely abhorrent. [0] https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2016/country-chapters/afric... | |
| ▲ | oliwarner 11 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Whose fault is that? The US and Russia have propped and warred every angle to extract as much oil as possible. The instability maintains a heavy flow of refugees into Europe, destabilising the freedoms they have there and pushing the politics further right. The sudden switch yesterday from "they can't make nukes" to "they're a fortnight away from ICBMs" felt a little too reminiscent of Iraq twenty years ago. If we want a stable Middle East, we have to stop bombing the shit out of it, and invest. Negotiate fairly for resources. Offer them a future. And demand Israel stop committing war crimes. | | |
| ▲ | eptcyka 11 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | I wonder if the _negotiate fairly_ option is viable after countless generations have been bombed. | | |
| ▲ | oliwarner 10 hours ago | parent [-] | | We either try, or resign to slowly killing each other until one does figure out how to wipe the other out forever. Forced separation only deepens the hatred. |
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| ▲ | simonh 9 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | It can be simultaneously true that Iran is sitting on a huge pike of precursor materials for nuclear weapons, and is not currently actually making bombs. Last week she was emphasising the latter, now she’s emphasising the former. Disingenuous? Sure. Trump and his people are children in the back of a car that found mummy’s gun in her purse. They have no idea what they are doing. I understand what Israel is doing but the US administration are clueless and rudderless. |
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| ▲ | throwaway7839 11 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Israel is the only country with tiered citizenship. It is the only country that has constitutional preference for an ethnic group instead of equality of all subjects/citizens. It is also the only country with automatic citizenship based on religion. It is also the only country with nuclear weapons but not part of NPT. Even North Korea is a member of NPT. The myth of Democracy is just that, a myth. It doesn’t work anymore. | | |
| ▲ | samjones33 3 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | - There is only one Israeli citizenship. Jews have it. Israeli Arab Muslims have it. Israeli Arab Christians have it. Druze have it. It's the same. Is there discrimination, in all directions? Yup. The world is a tribal place. But you should move on from that "tiered" thing. I live here. I have been doing a project with Arabs for the last two weeks. We have lunch together most days. Move on. - Constitution -- You clearly have not read the constitutions of Syria, Saudi Arabia, or many other countries. Ethnic groups are all over the identities of most of the world's countries. - Automatic citizenship - How narrow do you define this? African Americans can go to Liberia and other countries of Africa. Until just twenty years ago or so anyone with a German grandparent could automatically get German citizenship. If you are Cuban you can get American citizenship. Are you thinking this through? - NPT, I am not sure anyone cares, but this is very different than your other topics. | |
| ▲ | adastra22 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | The 18% of Israeli citizens that are Muslim are 100% equal to their Jewish brethren under the law. There is no tiered citizenship. | | |
| ▲ | chgs 10 hours ago | parent [-] | | https://www.timesofisrael.com/supreme-court-rejects-israeli-... Looks theocratic to me | | |
| ▲ | adastra22 10 hours ago | parent [-] | | I don’t think you understand what you linked to. That is about government census forms that track ethnicity, same as any other country. Nationality here doesn’t mean citizenship, but rather something closer to “tribe.” Some well meaning citizens said “I want to check Israeli rather than Jew, Druze, Arab, etc.” Except Israeli is not a nationality in this sense. Nor is Jewish, on this form, a religious identification. It is a way of tracking, for census reasons, something closer to ethnicity. Not for nefarious purposes, but just to track demographics. | | |
| ▲ | throwaway97894 9 hours ago | parent [-] | | That is a very dishonest interpretation not only because the national registry is not a mere question of census but of identity, but because the Supreme Court clearly outlines that it in black and white that it is about the question of Jewish supremacy. from the article: > the court explained that doing so would have “weighty implications” on the State of Israel and could pose a danger to Israel’s founding principle: to be a Jewish state for the Jewish people. |
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| ▲ | packetlost 9 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | > The myth of Democracy is just that, a myth. It doesn’t work anymore. That is a very strong claim that needs very strong evidence. | | |
| ▲ | throwaway97894 9 hours ago | parent [-] | | You have been provided with a list of items that undermines the claim of democracy, the evidence is also pretty strong. What else do you want? |
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| ▲ | dreghgh 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | There's only 3 problems with this old claim. 1. You have to define 'Israel' quite carefully to make it work. Palestinians in East Jerusalem cannot vote in Israeli elections. Is East Jerusalem part of Israel or not? 2. There are several other democracies in the Middle East, for example Iraq and Lebanon. 3. Some of the countries which aren't democratic, would be democratic, except that representative governments were overthrown by the United States, in part to enforce cooperation with Israel, against the wishes of most of the people in the country. For example, Egypt. | | |
| ▲ | samjones33 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | East Jerusalem is ... not a nut anyone here is going to crack. What do those folks want for themselves? Be part of the Palestinian Authority? (Not the ones I have been doing a remodel with.) Make them part of Jordan? Jerusalem is disputed territory. That makes it an uncomfortable mess, for more or less everyone. The region needs more efforts toward peace, and less black and white, good/bad labeling. East Jerusalemites are in limbo waiting for peace. It's Jerusalem. It's a strange place. |
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| ▲ | CalChris 11 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Iran was democratic … until we overthrew them. | | | |
| ▲ | hopelite 11 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | You seem to believe “democracy” is some kind of magic spell or something? This “democracy” just perpetrated and are continuing to perpetrate the worst kind of wanton and sadistic genocide in full view of the world and are doing it in high definition and with impunity. America is supposedly also a democracy and we just in fact bombed a place objectively without any provocation, in violation of our own supreme law, and being utterly counter to American interests, because an alien and foreign interest group has a stranglehold on America. Democracy is not some magic word that justifies things | |
| ▲ | alfiedotwtf 11 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Iran used to be a democracy in the Middle East until the US got involved | |
| ▲ | 11 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | [deleted] | |
| ▲ | reillyse 11 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | A shining beacon of democracy. | |
| ▲ | compiler_queen 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > Support for Israel extends beyond religious justifications Yes, it extends that support to cover apartheid colonial occupation, more-than-likely genocide by all the accepted definitions, and the usual smattering of targeting civilians, executing paramedics in marked ambulances and ethic cleansing. | |
| ▲ | wun0ne 11 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Israel, the democratic country whose prime minister appears to be deliberately prolonging the current conflict in Gaza and starting a new war with Iran to avoid facing corruption charges? | |
| ▲ | Hikikomori 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Bad hasbara. | |
| ▲ | LtWorf 11 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Israel has elections. So does Russia. Is Russia a democracy? | |
| ▲ | fluorinerocket 11 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | I could really care less what theit form of government is | | |
| ▲ | Tylkwvld 11 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | [dead] | |
| ▲ | petre 11 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | > starting a new war with Iran Hamas has started in on the 7th of october 2023, effectively rolling back years of negotiations done by Yasser Arafat. Where do you think they've got the weapons from? Netanyahu is no better, but they offered him the perfect motive for a response. | | |
| ▲ | dreghgh 10 hours ago | parent [-] | | > Where do you think they've got the weapons from? Ultimately, from the United States taxpayer. Who supply the Egyptian military government, who turn a small proportion over to the Islamists to keep them from too much rabble-rousing. Who smuggle them to Hamas. Both Qatar and Iran supply money and other forms of support to Hamas. But no RPG makes it into Gaza (across a shorter than 10 mile border) without the Egyptian military sort of knowing about it. | | |
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| ▲ | KnightSaysNi 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > Every side has an ordained right to blow the others off the face of the planet. What? Israel is 2000 Kms away from Iran, and would want nothing do to with them if not for Iran's "Death to Israel" slogan and policy... > Do they? The IAEA declared Iran in breach of its non-proliferation obligations, hardly a "bullshit made-up excuse" | |
| ▲ | ngcazz 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | None of what is going on in the Middle East is a "religious war" as such. That's a thought-terminating cliche that you're putting in practice pretty clearly here. |
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| ▲ | throw310822 12 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | All this talk about nuclear weapons is purposefully misleading. Iran had agreements in place to keep its nuclear program under strict and thorough international checks, and was currently negotiating a new one. The original deal was scrapped on Netanyahu's request, and the bombing was started by Netanyahu to prevent a new one. Israel doesn't fear Iran's nukes. Israel fears an economically functional Iran and uses the wmd excuse to sabotage it as much as possible. The worst possible outcome for them is Iran proving it has no nuclear weapons at all and having its sanctions lifted. | | |
| ▲ | nine_k 12 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Realistically, a secular Iran would be the only real ally of Israel in the region. This is how it was under the shah, until 1979. Israel is set to benefit enormously from an economically functional Iran, with sanctions lifted, and a sane, non-fanatical, non-oppressive government. Iran used to be a pretty cool and developed country in 1960s, and could be now. (Edit: typo) | | |
| ▲ | dttze 11 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | You’re like the gusanos that say Cuba was so much better before the revolution. Without mentioning it was only great for the landowning slavers. Why do you think there was a revolution? | | |
| ▲ | HK-NC 9 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Well I'd argue 50% of the population got a raw deal in the revolution at least. | |
| ▲ | 11 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | [deleted] | |
| ▲ | nine_k 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Cubans kept massively supporting Fidel for quite some time, and quite explicitly, even through the disastrous Communist economic policies. Iranians keep protesting; last few years have seen several large protests, involving hundreds of thousands, and continuing for months. The popularity just isn't there. Regarding revolutions, it's quite often that a relatively small group of like-minded people capture the control, and the majority is weakly supporting them, or is even weakly opposed but complies. The French revolution was mostly about some nobility wanting to remove the monarchy that oppressed them, along with the rest; most of the population wasn't overtly anti-monarchy, and not even covertly so, but it did not like the monarchy's pressure either. The Russian revolution was "communist" and "proletarian", but even by their own Marxist accounting, proletarians were less than 10% of Russian population, and communists, much fewer still. Nevertheless, they subdued most of the Russian empire. The Iranian revolution was also done by a group of highly religious people who were fed up with the shah's secularization reforms. The shah, AFAICT, was a guy a bit like Putin, or Saudi kings: efficient and geared towards prosperity of the country, but quite authoritarian. The fact that e.g. the educated urban population in Iran wasn't happy about authoritarianism does not imply that the same people were (or are) huge fans of theocracy. Actually, the theocracy ended up even more oppressive. | |
| ▲ | inglor_cz 9 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | The Cuban revolution was more of a coup than a widespread national uprising. It was a blind alley anyway. Zero countries that embraced Marxism-Leninism were able to reach prosperity on that ideology. Meanwhile, a lot of desperately poor countries of the 1950s are nowadays reasonably well of, on the basis of a normal, regulated market economy. | | |
| ▲ | LtWorf 7 hours ago | parent [-] | | Do you have sources for all of this fantasy spin on history? | | |
| ▲ | inglor_cz 7 hours ago | parent [-] | | AFAIK Castro had never more than 3 thousand armed men at his side, and often much fewer, down to lower hundreds, spending much of the protracted conflict hiding in the countryside. A revolution is something in which a significant part of a nation actively participates, not something that almost the entire population sits out passively. Of course we can debate what is the necessary fraction, but 3000 militants isn't a big deal in a country of several million. Every Iraqi cleric in 2010 was able to put together a bigger militia than that. |
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| ▲ | lostlogin 11 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > This is how it was under the shah, until 1979. Sort of? The US played a role in that shit show and it wasn’t all happy days under the Shah. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iranian_Revolution | | |
| ▲ | nine_k 10 hours ago | parent [-] | | Not "happy", but Iran was quite a bit more sober, not hostile towards Israel, and relatively secular. (Similarly, China under Deng Xiaoping was not a paragon of political freedom at all, but it was quite a bit more sober than under Mao Zedong. The US administration had tons of shortcomings under president Biden, but it was in quite a bit less of disarray than under president Trump.) |
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| ▲ | praptak 11 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Shah was a dictator propped up by US. There's no going back to these times. | | | |
| ▲ | throw310822 11 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > Israel is set to benefit enormously from an economically functional Iran, Israel is currently engaged in genocide, how would it be good for it to benefit enormously? | | |
| ▲ | foxglacier 11 hours ago | parent [-] | | People keep saying genocide but has it been established objectively? I seem to remember the ICJ deciding they weren't, but that was some time ago. | | |
| ▲ | tdeck 10 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | > ? I seem to remember the ICJ deciding they weren't Is this some reality distortion field? This never happened. Instead the ICJ issued multiple explicit orders to Israel that Israel has violated and the genocide case is still ongoing. | |
| ▲ | Krasnol 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Who cares about ICJ or any International Law these days anymore? Yeah, I mean we can still use it (or it's slowness and uselessness) to hide behind it but the facts are on the table. Gaza looks like post-war Germany at this point. People ARE starving. Meanwhile Israel expands to the east. Also illegally. | |
| ▲ | qwery 7 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | People keep questioning the definition of genocide, as if finding some technical distinction will absolve the perpetrators. If you actually care about international law, you might be interested to know that the ICC has issued (standing) arrest warrants for Netanyahu and the former Israeli Minister for Defense for various crimes against humanity and the use of starvation in warfare. |
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| ▲ | Tylkwvld 10 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | [dead] |
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| ▲ | k7sune 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | How about the UN censuring Iran for not complying with the agreement? Was this a manufactured consensus? I don't see anyone mentioning IAEA's decision here. www.pbs.org/newshour/amp/world/un-nuclear-watchdog-censures-iran-a-move-that-could-lead-to-restore-sanctions | |
| ▲ | ivell 11 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > The worst possible outcome for them is Iran proving it has no nuclear weapons at all and having its sanctions lifted. Circumstantial evidence seems to be that Iran indeed was enriching Uranium beyond what was necessary for electricity. Why would they build enrichment facility deep underground? It is not that Iran is having energy crisis. The claim that Iran is thinking of green energy and climate change effects is a bit weak. | | |
| ▲ | compsciphd 7 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | its not circumstantial. Even Iran has publicly said that they have enriched to 60%. 60% is not needed for civilian uses and only useful for research in how to make it go boom. | |
| ▲ | LtWorf 11 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Remember all that evidence about iraq? Remember the british guy who worked at the ministry and went to the news saying there was no evidence and then suicided without leaving his own fingerprints on the weapon? | | |
| ▲ | simonh 27 minutes ago | parent [-] | | The uranium enrichment is confirmed by the Iranians, the have published pictures of their leaders inspecting the centrifuges. You can find them with a quick search. |
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| ▲ | energy123 11 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Iran has violated the NPT so many times at this stage that no good faith observer can say what you've said here with a straight face. This is just using words to persuade for political purposes, it is not analysis. | | |
| ▲ | throw310822 7 hours ago | parent [-] | | Iran has violated the NPT because there were agreements in place for it to respect it, and the agreements have been violated by the other side. An action that must have consequences, otherwise there is no point in making deals with anyone. |
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| ▲ | petre 11 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Sure, they're making weapons grade uranium to exhibit it in the Museum of the Islamic Revolution and the Holy Defense in Teheran. |
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| ▲ | FilosofumRex 13 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | [flagged] | | |
| ▲ | 9dev 12 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | These positions are not mutually exclusive though. You can both be in favor of stripping Irans ability to build nukes and oppose Israel’s settlements. | | |
| ▲ | AlecSchueler 11 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Israel's settlements are the reason Iran feels the need for such developments though. I can oppose IRA violence and British imperialism at the same time but if we're having a reasonable conversation we have to recognise that British colonial force in Ireland is what drove people to form the IRA. | | |
| ▲ | shusaku 11 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | > Israel's settlements are the reason Iran feels the need for such developments though. Even Iran’s leaders would laugh in your face at such a naive statement, you should reconsider your media diet | |
| ▲ | mrkstu 11 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | You know that isn’t true. Israel could withdraw to the 1969 borders and Iran would be just as dedicated to destroying it. | | |
| ▲ | AlecSchueler 10 hours ago | parent [-] | | I'm not sure how that contradicts what I'm saying. To continue the analogy that's like going back to 1900 and saying Britain could pull out of Ireland except for Ulster and there'd still be people calling for further decolonisation. |
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| ▲ | spiderfarmer 12 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Iran is stupid trying to covertly get to a nuclear bomb, Israel is very stupid with those illegal settlements. It’s costing them both a lot of sympathy. |
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| ▲ | ivell 11 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | My understanding is that most countries support a two nation solution. I have not seen any Iranian statement that accepts this. On the other hand I have seen them consistently calling for outright destruction of Israel. Given their declared intend of destruction, no one in right mind would allow them the capability of destruction. | |
| ▲ | dlahoda 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | just exactly predating goverment was friendly with israel: https://www.tehrantimes.com/news/496386/Pahlavi-and-Israel-t... so what exact goverment your arr referring? | |
| ▲ | dismalaf 12 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Occupation of "Muslim lands"? Under the Ottoman Empire it was (relatively) scarcely populated and a mix of Jews, Christians and Muslims, plus some religious minorities. Before the Ottomans and various Islamic conquests it was almost entirely Christian/Roman (as was the whole Middle East). Before that Jewish. And keep in mind Zionism started during the Ottoman era, with Jews simply immigrating there. Also let's not forget that the partition plan for Palestine was proposed by the UN which you reference. | | |
| ▲ | throw310822 12 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | > and a fairly even mix of Jews, Christians and Muslims False. The population in 1800 was ~90% Muslim, ~8% Christian. > let's not forget that the partition plan for Palestine was proposed by the UN The UN had no authority to partition other people's land. | | |
| ▲ | sgt 11 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Wrong. They were given the authority by general consensus after WW2. Maybe a poor choice, but it's not at all the responsibility of current Israelis to think about what their grandparents did. For a Gen Z Israeli, there's only one country. | | | |
| ▲ | fastball 12 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | If they don't control it, it's not the "other people's" land either. Land belongs to whoever controls it. That's it. That is all it will ever be. If there is not some higher power (e.g. the UN, who you say does not have authority), you have no recourse. No matter what land it is or who they are: nobody currently living was there first. The only claim is always "I was the last to control it". But none of us are the first. | |
| ▲ | dotancohen 11 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | The censuses were always flip-flopping back and forth, until the 1880s. You cherry picked one nice one, but I could check pick over half a dozen censuses that show Jewish majority during the 19th century - no less than the amount of censuses that promote the other competing narrative. And all the later censuses, after 1880, show Jewish majority. That was over three decades before the fall of the Ottoman empire. Source for census data:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographic_history_of_Jerusalem
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| ▲ | motorest 11 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | From wikipedia's article on the history of Palestine: > "Most of Palestine's population, estimated to be around 200,000 in the early years of Ottoman rule, lived in villages. The largest cities were Gaza, Safad and Jerusalem, each with a population of around 5,000–6,000." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Palestine | | |
| ▲ | throw310822 11 hours ago | parent [-] | | That's in the 16th century. Almost no Jews at that time either. | | |
| ▲ | motorest 11 hours ago | parent [-] | | > That's in the 16th century. OP's point was "Under the Ottoman Empire it was (relatively) scarcely populated and a mix of Jews, Christians and Muslims, plus some religious minorities." What are you trying to dispute here? That the territory of today's Israel was sparsely populated back then, or that the Ottoman Empire existed back then? > Almost no Jews at that time either. What a wild claim: almost no Jews in places like Jerusalem? Please cite whatever source you have to make such an extraordinary claim. | | |
| ▲ | throw310822 11 hours ago | parent [-] | | > What are you trying to dispute here? That the territory of today's Israel was sparsely populated back then, or that the Ottoman Empire existed back then Exactly the part that you left out: that the Jewish presence (before zionist immigration began) was of any relevance in the demography of the region. |
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| ▲ | dotancohen 12 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | I've never understood the argument of Muslim Land or Arab Land. If one were to call Britain White Man's Land and start a terror campaign against African, Asian, and Arab immigrants, would the world community accept that? Jerusalem was Jewish majority in the time of the Ottoman Empire [1]. How does that become suddenly Muslim Land? [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographic_history_of_Jerus... | | |
| ▲ | throw310822 12 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | > Jerusalem was Jewish majority in the time of the Ottoman Empire [1] (Links a page that shows the exact opposite) > If one were to call Britain White Man's Land and start a terror campaign against African, Asian, and Arab immigrants, would the world community accept that? Isn't that exactly what happened, i.e. Israel declared half of the land "Jewish land" and proceeded to ethnically cleanse 800 thousand palestinians with whom they had been living side by side in the previous decades? | | |
| ▲ | dotancohen 12 hours ago | parent [-] | | > Links to a page that shows the exact opposite
This isn't Reddit. Many people here actually do read sources. All the censuses in the decades before the fall of the Ottoman empire show a Jewish majority. And for the century preceding that, the censuses flipped back and forth. > Isn't that exactly what happened, i.e. Israel declared half of the land "Jewish land" and proceeded to ethnically cleans 800 thousand palestinians with whom they had been living side by side in the previous decades?
No. The UN designated the malaria-infested marshes Israeli (not Jewish) and the majority of the rest Arab (not Muslim, not Palestinian, and not Egyptian or Jordanian). The Arab states rejected this, and opened a war with the newly formed Israel. Many Israeli leaders pleaded with the Arab residents not to heed the Arab states' calls to evacuate. The situation in Haifa is well documented, I know this from living with Arabs in Haifa two decades ago. They tell how the Haifa mayor pleaded with their families to remain in 1948. | | |
| ▲ | throw310822 11 hours ago | parent [-] | | > This isn't Reddit. Many people here actually do read sources. Exactly. The Ottoman rule of Palestine spans 400 years, and the graph at the top of the page you linked shows that Jews became a majority in Jerusalem only at the very end of it, following zionist immigration at the end of the 19th century. > The UN designated the malaria-infested marshes Israeli (not Jewish) The problem is that this isn't reddit and people actually read the sources. This is the text of the Partition Plan: "Independent Arab and Jewish States and the Special International Regime for the City of Jerusalem, set forth in Part III of this Plan, shall come into existence..." https://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/res181.asp | | |
| ▲ | loandbehold 11 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Why do you have such a problem with Zionist immigration that made Jerusalem a Jewish-majority city? It was legal immigration allowed by Ottoman Empire. Do you see Muslims immigrating to Europe in the same light? Many previously "white" cities in Europe are now Muslim. Should Europeans call it "Muslim occupation of white land"? That sounds pretty racist. Why double standard? | | |
| ▲ | throw310822 11 hours ago | parent [-] | | Ah no, I have no problem with it, as much as Palestinians had little problem with the tens, and then hundreds of thousands of Jewish immigrants to their land. Of course if the UN were suddenly to declare that half of my country is now assigned to them only to build their, say, Arab state- then I would be quite pissed. Wouldn't you? | | |
| ▲ | UltraSane 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | "their land." It wasn't "their" land, it was Ottoman land and they let Jews migrate there because Jews paid for the land. |
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| ▲ | dotancohen 11 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | From Wikipedia: > The First Aliyah, also known as the agriculture Aliyah, was a major wave of Jewish immigration (aliyah) to Ottoman Palestine between 1881 and 1903 ... An estimated 25,000 Jews immigrated.
Jerusalem was already Jewish majority before 1881. And the large waves of the movement were towards the end, not towards the beginning. | | |
| ▲ | throw310822 11 hours ago | parent [-] | | Yes, as we said, zionist immigration to Palestine began at the end of the 19th century. Nothing to do with the small historical Jewish population of Palestine or Jerusalem. |
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| ▲ | FilosofumRex 12 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Yes indeed, if white British people were expelled from their lands and their homes confiscated by anyone, Norse, Germanic or Russian, it'd be considered ethnic cleansing and a war crime. The jews of Ottoman era were Sephardic and Mizrahi jews of N. Africa, not the Yiddish speaking Ashkenazis of Germany, France and Russia. | | |
| ▲ | dotancohen 11 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Thank you for your support. After the UN divided the holy land into an Israeli and an Arab state, the Arabs began their ethnic cleaning campaign. That is why there were zero Jews left in Gaza or the West Bank after the war. The war that was started with the stated goal of eliminating the Jews. And note that despite Arab calls for the Arabs to evacuate the holy land, it remained 20% Arab. And let's not get started on the Jews in the other 20 plus Arab states. What at happened to them? | |
| ▲ | dotancohen 12 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > Ashkenazis
A word which literally means "from the Levant", where Ashkenaz (Noah's descendent) had settled. | |
| ▲ | UltraSane 11 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Like how the Arab countries expelled Jews after Israel was founded? The double standard about Israel and Arab colonization and ethnic cleansing is absurd. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_exodus_from_the_Muslim_... |
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| ▲ | dismalaf 12 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | I actually do know the "Muslim lands" reference. Religious Muslims believe any land ever controlled by Muslims must remain Muslim forever. It's a conquest tactic. It gets slightly reframed to be tolerable for westerners by invoking the idea that they're "indigenous", when they're largely Arabs who committed genocide against the previous peoples. https://www.getreligion.org/getreligion/2016/8/12/israel-sau... | | |
| ▲ | dudefeliciano 12 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | > when they're largely Arabs who committed genocide against the previous peoples. So what area are arabs from? You know there are arab jews and christians right? | | |
| ▲ | dotancohen 12 hours ago | parent [-] | | The Arab culture, identity, and distinct racial features formed in the Arabian peninsula. After they accepted Islam in the 7th century, they turned to conquest other areas. This is all well documented in Arab sources, they are very proud of this. | | |
| ▲ | dudefeliciano 11 hours ago | parent [-] | | >they accepted Islam in the 7th century Oh i didn't realize we're going back more than a millennia. Well, in that case every modern nation state is the product of one form of genocide or another - the USA being the worst genocidal state, going back just 500 years. >The Arab culture, identity, and distinct racial features formed in the Arabian peninsula Seems silly to me to claim a land that "your people" inhabited centuries and millennia ago, as it honestly seems silly to me talk about "racial features" when talking about humans. Arab culture? Are you telling me an arab jew, muslim, christian, druze and aheist have the same culture by virtue of being of the same "race"? | | |
| ▲ | dotancohen 11 hours ago | parent [-] | | > Arab culture? Are you telling me an arab jew, muslim, christian, druze and aheist have the same culture by virtue of being of the same "race"?
Not by virtue of being the same race, but by virtue of being the offspring of parents who are proud of their heritage and teach their children.Denying the existence of Arab culture, of which the Arabs are (rightly, in my opinion) very proud of, is racism. Not everybody has the same values and customs as you do. | | |
| ▲ | dudefeliciano 11 hours ago | parent [-] | | Can you mention one cultural trait that an arab jew, muslim, and atheist would share? That's like saying there is a european culture, it's nonsense. | | |
| ▲ | vntok 11 hours ago | parent [-] | | https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture_of_Europe | | |
| ▲ | dudefeliciano 11 hours ago | parent [-] | | "Whilst there are a great number of perspectives that can be taken on the subject, it is impossible to form a single, all-embracing concept of European culture." Literally the second sentence in that wiki | | |
| ▲ | vntok 9 hours ago | parent [-] | | Do you frequently stop reading articles two sentences in? It's amazing how much knowledge and intelligence you must be missing. Please do keep reading past. The next sentence (literally sentence #3) gives you: Nonetheless, there are core elements which are generally agreed upon as forming the cultural foundation of modern Europe. One list of these elements given by K. Bochmann includes: And then a detailed list of shared-culture-related items. - A common cultural and spiritual heritage derived from Greco-Roman antiquity, Christianity, Judaism, the Renaissance, its Humanism, the political thinking of the Enlightenment, the French Revolution, and the developments of Modernity, including all types of socialism;[5][4] - A rich and dynamic material culture, parts of which have been extended to the other continents as the result of industrialization and colonialism during the "Great Divergence";[5] - A specific conception of the individual expressed by the existence of, and respect for, a legality that guarantees human rights and the liberty of the individual;[5] - A plurality of states with different political orders, which share new ideas with one another.[5] - Respect for peoples, states, and nations outside Europe. And then there are 15 categories from Music to Science to History, listing cultural similitudes or shared values. |
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| ▲ | AlecSchueler 11 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > Religious Muslims believe any land ever controlled by Muslims must remain Muslim forever. What are you basing this on? Are "religious" Muslims some kind of True Scots Muslims? I'm willing to bet that if I speak to any of my Muslim neighbours none of them will agree with this. | |
| ▲ | LtWorf 10 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Well if you go back enough… all english people are actually vikings who committed genocide against the britons. And all swedish people are steppe barbarians who committed genocide against the local sami people. | | |
| ▲ | dismalaf 8 hours ago | parent [-] | | Source on Swedes being steppe barbarians? Most historians agree that Vikings originated in Scandinavia. Sami peoples originated in northern Russia and moved to the furthest north regions of Scandinavia. The Vikings were also more concerned with seafaring and raiding to the south and west and all the history I know of is that they coexisted mostly peacefully (Vikings would trade with the Sami). Conflict arose centuries after the Viking age. | | |
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| ▲ | FilosofumRex 12 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | So why was it called Palestine Partition Plan, and not Israeli partition plan: "Palestine Partition Plan" is United Nations General Assembly Resolution 181 (II), adopted on November 29, 1947. This resolution, officially titled "Future Government of Palestine," recommended the partition of the British Mandate of Palestine into independent Arab and Jewish states, with Jerusalem and its environs to be placed under a special international regime." | | |
| ▲ | fastball 12 hours ago | parent [-] | | "Palestine" is a term which pre-dates Islam (coming from the Greek "Palaistine"), so I don't think you are making the point you are trying to make. | | |
| ▲ | adastra22 11 hours ago | parent [-] | | Yup, Palestine is a name for the land, not the people. It is a Roman era corruption of Phoenician. | | |
| ▲ | dismalaf 9 hours ago | parent [-] | | No, Philistine (and all the variants) comes from a Greek word for "uncouth" and is a word for the ancient Philistines given by their neighbours; it's unknown what the Philistines called themselves. The Philistines weren't the Phoenicians, they were more recent invaders (possibly some of the "Sea People"). For one, the Philistines were Aegean and the Phoenicians were Semitic. The Philistines also disappeared (either killed or assimilated) while the Phoenicians spawned Carthage (the ones in the Levant probably just assimilated over time as many powers controlled the area after them). It only became the name for the land after the Bar Kockba revolt, the Romans named it such specifically to spite the Jews. And then it stuck when various powers controlled the land over time (Romans/East Romans aka. Byzantines, Caliphate, Ottomans, British). |
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| ▲ | AlecSchueler 11 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > Also let's not forget that the partition plan for Palestine was proposed by the UN Who proposed the Balfour Declaration 30 years prior? | |
| ▲ | iamacyborg 11 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > And keep in mind Zionism started during the Ottoman era, with Jews simply immigrating there. Presumably during one of the frequent rounds of forceful expulsion from European states. | |
| ▲ | woodpanel 12 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Exactly. Ill intended actors (Soviets, competing European interests, Islamists etc.) even propped up the propaganda fiction about the "evil" Crusaders, while in fact the Crusaders fought against colonization. The entire north of Africa, as well as the Levante and Asia Minor was still 80-90% Christian when Crusaders came. |
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| ▲ | golol 12 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | You can oppose something or you can create terorrist militias to attack Israel and destabilize its neighboring countries. | | |
| ▲ | FilosofumRex 12 hours ago | parent [-] | | Your "terrorists" militias predate formation of Islamic Republic of Iran, in 1979. Yasser Arafat, and all other Palestinian liberators were also labeled as terrorists. Can you name one Palestinian who has fought against Israel's occupation and is not considered a terrorist by you? https://jcpa.org/the-parallels-between-yahya-sinwar-and-yass... | | |
| ▲ | golol 4 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | If you fight in an active civil war you are not a terrorist (1948 Arab-Israeli war) If you strike military targets of an occupation force in a time of guerilla warfare you are not a terrorist. (Many palestinian fighters when there is an active conflict with Israel) If you strike military targets of an occupation force in a time of relative peace, and your reignition of violence has no goal of achieving anything for your people, you are probably not a terrorist, but probably doing something wrong and stupid and horrible that hurts your own civilians, driven by nationalism or ideology or whatever. (Palestinian fighters on October 7 that struck military bases for example). If you strike civilian targets or tage hostages, you are a terrorist. And worse if you do it at a time of relative peace to ignite violence against your own people.
Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthi's have engaged in plenty of the latter since a long time. By the way, if you level a building with 8 militants and 20 civilians that is brutal urban warcare but not terrorism. If you go to a festival and kill predominantly hundreds of civilians, that's terrorism. | |
| ▲ | dontTREATonme 11 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Can you name a single Palestinian who has actually moved the needle on a functioning democratic Palestinian state? Every single current and former Palestinian leader has been heavily theocratic, has pledged to kill Jews wherever they are and has never considered sharing any of whatever power he’s gotten with anyone else. | | |
| ▲ | AlecSchueler 11 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Do you stop to ask what creates the environment where the most extreme views flourish and gain traction? | | |
| ▲ | dontTREATonme 11 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | I always marvel at the extreme racism required to so thoroughly dehumanize an entire population. | | | |
| ▲ | Ray20 11 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Islamist majority? | | |
| ▲ | AlecSchueler 10 hours ago | parent [-] | | Nope, Islamism is an extreme position so that gets you no further in the answering the question. What set the stage for an Islamist majority? Again I assert that extreme politics don't develop in vacuums. | | |
| ▲ | golol 3 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | The thing is it doesn't help. Yes of course the horrible situation of the palestinians promotes extremism, but you still have to face that there is a lot of extremism. What was Israel to do before October 7 (besides making sure Oct 7 could not happen)? Of course there are ppints where history could have gone in a better direction but I really don't see an easy way for Israel to achieve a better situation. Say they had withdraw from the west bank in 2018 for some reason. Who says that Oct 7 would still not have happened on a much greater scale? In fact I find it quite likely that it would. And then you might be looking at 3000 dead Israelis instead. The only rational reason for the Oct 7 attacks I can see is that Hamas wants to incite as much violence as possible to put as much political pressure as possible on Israel due to the inevitable retaliation. So Oct 7 would have made even more sense, as the deoccupation of the west bank is far from the total of their political goals. | |
| ▲ | dontTREATonme 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | And here you are continuing to dehumanize and remove all agency for an entire religion now. Truly the bigotry required to hold these beliefs is breathtaking. | | |
| ▲ | AlecSchueler 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | I'm not doing that in any way. Islamism != Islam, and I'm not suggesting that the entire population of following Islamist beliefs, only that there's an environment where it can gain traction. Please explain your reading if you're going to make such personal attacks. | | |
| ▲ | dontTREATonme 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | You’re missing the point because you’re so unaware of your own enormous bigotry. All Muslims have their own agency. They are all humans capable of making their own decisions. And like all humans are happy to be held responsible for the decisions they make. You do not believe the above. | | |
| ▲ | AlecSchueler 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | I'm honestly not sure if this is satire or why you feel the need to tell me what I believe. > All Muslims have their own agency. They are all humans capable of making their own decisions. And like all humans are happy to be held responsible for the decisions they make. And I'm not sure why you feel I don't recognise the agency of Muslims? As I said previously please make an argument or explain your position and I'll respond to it, but it feels absurd to entertain these seemingly baseless ad hominems. I grew up in a conflict zone and feel that I have some understanding of the group dynamics. That's totally reasonable and I encourage you to ask yourself if your apparent anger and incredulity here is misplaced. | | |
| ▲ | dontTREATonme an hour ago | parent [-] | | You’re speaking in innuendo so I’m responding in kind. Plainly state your argument, which you haven’t done yet, instead opting for an odd vaguely veiled bigotry about Muslims’ ability to make their own choices. | | |
| ▲ | AlecSchueler 18 minutes ago | parent [-] | | I'm saying that Western colonial practices and violent Zionism created a situation where many people in Palestine, and beyond, felt no other choice but to support a violent counter campaign. Your turn. |
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| ▲ | tdeck 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | This is like complaining that Nat Turner didn't move the needle on moving the US toward universal suffrage. | | |
| ▲ | dontTREATonme 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | Right because slaves in the American south were offered freedom tens of times but refused it always bec it might have involved some compromise they didn’t like. These childish comparisons don’t even pass the sniff test. |
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| ▲ | orwin 10 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | No? The issue US had with the PLF is that it was controlled by Marxist. the theocratic pro-palestine movements didn't start until the 90s. |
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| ▲ | UltraSane 11 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | All of that Palestine resistance to Israel has accomplished nothing except misery for Palestinians. | | |
| ▲ | Hikikomori 10 hours ago | parent [-] | | They should just let the second Holocaust happen? | | |
| ▲ | golol 4 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | The west bank seems to not be doing so bad compared to Gaza. | |
| ▲ | UltraSane 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | You should stop lying about a non-existent genocide. Israel just wants to live in peace. This is why 20% of the Israel population is Arab and 0% of Gaza and the West Bank are Jewish. | | |
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| ▲ | dartharva 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Anyone who unironically attributes any land to be Muslim, Jewish or of any other religion must be immediately dealt with. Land is land. It should never, never be beholden to any one religion. | |
| ▲ | edanm 12 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > Iran opposition to Israel's occupation of Muslim lands and territories, predates the current government of Iran. And yet, the previous government of Iran had friendly relations with Israel, as do some other Arab and Muslim countries. The US also has friendly relations with countries with whom it disagrees vehemently, and that do (IMO) far worse things than Israel does. | |
| ▲ | fortran77 12 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | A complete inversion of history. What an insane take! | |
| ▲ | alex1138 12 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | [flagged] | |
| ▲ | 11 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | [deleted] | |
| ▲ | pbhjpbhj 11 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Israel occupies lands belonging to the Biblical patriarch Jacob. That was something like 1800 BCE, two and a half millennia before Mohammed. Islam refers to Jacob, as does the Torah/Old Testament as "Israel". I find the repeated suggestion that those are Muslim lands because Israel is a new territory to be strange -- it can't be a Quranic position. It doesn't appear consistent with history either. | | |
| ▲ | bambax 11 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | That's a ridiculous position. We can't organize today's world based on who was where 4 millennia ago. (If we did, most if not all countries would immediately cease to exist, starting of course with the US but not limited to them.) | |
| ▲ | samaltmanfried 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Assuming this claim were true, which it isn't, the modern Israelis have genetically nothing in common with the Jews of the old testament. They don't have the same culture, religion, language or genetics. | |
| ▲ | ivell 11 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | I find historical claims like this not very convincing. 1800 BCE looked very different from today and if people from old civilizations start claiming their land, we would not see any end of wars. Should Italy claim most of Europe because Romans had it under their control? | |
| ▲ | quietbritishjim 10 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | You make it sound like the dispute is about who has some ancient religious right to the land. It's true that both sides claim that but it's totally disingenuous to pretend that is the reason for so much Arab anger. People still have a living memory of specific properties in specific locations that they were forced out of and are now occupied by other families, often with some of their relatives killed in the process That applies both to places in Israel proper (displaced in 1940s to 1960s) and to Gaza and the West Bank (in the time since then). Even before the most recent war in Gaza, any Palestinian could be forced out of their home at any moment by an Israeli settler with no recourse. |
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| ▲ | kikimora 11 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Last time I checked history books said Britain donated land to Jews. At the time Britain took house land there were no state and no nation called Palestinians, just tribes. Since then Palestinians formed as a nation. So what do you want Israel to do, disappear? Or negotiate, but with whom? The only power there is hamas which is non-negotiable. I really interested in seeing any realistic solution to the problem, however far fetched it is. | | |
| ▲ | bambax 11 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | > Britain donated land to Jews Land it didn't own. Most people can be very generous with what they don't have. | | |
| ▲ | kikimora 9 hours ago | parent [-] | | Agree, but my point is in the question how to untangle the mess we have today. |
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| ▲ | chgs 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | You are arguing in favour of the land allocations in 1948? | | |
| ▲ | kikimora 9 hours ago | parent [-] | | I’m asking for realistic ideas how to deal jews and palestinians occupying same land, hating each other and having no where to go from that land. |
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| ▲ | LtWorf 11 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | If you start from made up premises, the conclusion is also made up. Try to read a non fantasy sionist history book… | | |
| ▲ | kikimora 9 hours ago | parent [-] | | There is no conclusion on my part. There is an ask for reasonable ideas how to untangle the mess between jews and palestinians. | | |
| ▲ | LtWorf 7 hours ago | parent [-] | | If you start from made up premises, you will not be able to judge "reasonable ideas". | | |
| ▲ | kikimora 5 hours ago | parent [-] | | So I’m not good enough for you to share your ideas, did I get it right? You realize this is not how people reach consensus? If you cannot give me a compelling argument what makes you think jews and arabs would be happy with your ideas? |
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| ▲ | compiler_queen 11 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > How well would you sleep at night? Well, considering that Israeli's are occupying land that rightfully belongs to someone else, I'd say not very well indeed. It's the final major European colonial outpost, and its fighting hard not to go the way of Algeria, Kenya, Malaya and a long long list of others. | | |
| ▲ | elcritch 9 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Even if you believe Israelis don’t have a right to the land, it’s still not a colonial outpost. That’s just lazy European and American self important intellectualizing in my opinion. First a colony is one controlled by a foreign nation. Next the population of Israel is, or was, about half Sephardim. Meaning Jews from the Middle East, many of whom were unwilling expelled from Muslim countries. Secondly Arab Muslim Palestinians could also be considered colonizers if ones that’d been there many generations. The Israel and Palestine conflict in many aspects is more similar to between Turkey and Greece after WWI. In 1923 they “swapped populations” due to the aftermaths of Greeces independence from the Turkish Ottaman Empire and the following wars. Populations which had lived together segregated after the wars and were expelled on both sides in roughly equal numbers. It was similar after the 1948 war with about 850,000 Middle Eastern Jews and 750,000 Palestinians being displaced. Except Palestinians were never integrated into Egypt or Jordan. Partly by their own choice and partly by that of the Arab countries. The stated goal was that they’d destroy the new state of Israel and return. | |
| ▲ | kanbara 9 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | you do know that jews come from the current state of israel right? and that they lived there before the founding of said state? and that, no, neither group of 7M people are going to pack up and leave. | | |
| ▲ | compiler_queen 8 hours ago | parent [-] | | This is no more relevant than the guys in the OAS banging the table and claiming 2M Frenchmen have always lived in Algeria. It's not the age of exploration any more, you can no more rock up on someone else's patch, declare it terra nullis and start building condos. What's worse again, is trying to make it some religious thing... this book here says I own all you guy's land because the book says God gave it to us guys and not yous. |
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| ▲ | bambax 11 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > and they believe god has ordered them to destroy you Maybe, but obviously the other side thinks exactly the same. Religious wars were lots of fun five centuries ago. They will be funnier still in the nuclear age. | | |
| ▲ | Alex_L_Wood 9 hours ago | parent [-] | | Ah, yes, Israel famously publicly declaring that its' holy mission is to destroy Iran. Happened so many times, yes. |
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| ▲ | _tik_ 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Then how is that any different from what the USA has done. Bombing and destroying many countries in the name of spreading democracy? | |
| ▲ | mykowebhn 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > It's that they believe they have a religious duty to destroy the state of Israel. I believe this is very important to highlight, and, unfortunately, many Iranians will suffer because of the Iranian government's views. But I do believe there are viewpoints held on both sides that can make achieving peace in that region extremely difficult. Consider these two video excerpts (You only need to watch about 10 seconds for each) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CYoa9hI3CXg&t=1948s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AEiL_5h14pY&t=452s | |
| ▲ | powerapple 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | What's the reason of incompatibility of Islam and Jewish religion? | | |
| ▲ | elcritch 9 hours ago | parent [-] | | Nothing in most of their beliefs. They’re both monotheistic and similar in many regards as Islam largely inherited its tenants from both Judaism and Christianity. Jews were often well treated and flourished in the earlier Islamic caliphates. But with the formation of a Jewish Israel the conflict. Generally in Islamic belief there must be an Islamic caliphate with Sharia Law. Jerusalem is considered one of the holy sites of Islam and therefore belongs to that caliphate. That’s contrasted with Judaism and Israel being the land promised to the Jews. Though modern Israel was largely founded by secular Jews so it’s a bit more complicated on that front. |
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| ▲ | tharmas 13 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Israel has nukes, so why would they be afraid of Iran? | | |
| ▲ | raffraffraff 12 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | There's "having nukes" and there's "using nukes". https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=QgkUVIj3KWY The trouble with a regime like Iran is that they are a death cult. The price the put on human life (their own people as much as anyone else) is low, and they're all for martyrdom. With Iran, you cannot assume it's a just a deterrent in a cold war. You have to assume an increased likelihood that they will actually use them. | | |
| ▲ | lostlogin 11 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | > The trouble with a regime like Iran is that they are a death cult. Compare the number of deaths caused by Iranian weapons and those caused by Israeli weapons in the last year. Or 5 years, or 10. Do you have some other way of defining ‘death cult’? | | |
| ▲ | raffraffraff 10 hours ago | parent [-] | | A death cult doesn't care about deaths in it's own population as long as it wipes out it's enemy. A death cult prizes martyrdom. |
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| ▲ | tharmas 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Only the USA has ever used Nukes. | |
| ▲ | djfivyvusn 11 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Not only that, they were planning to give them to Hezbollah. The brain-dead takes I'm hearing about this shitty war amazes me. |
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| ▲ | deepsun 12 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | The main point of having nukes is not using them. The moment one uses them -- they lost. Nukes are good as a deterrent, not good as a weapon. | |
| ▲ | JumpCrisscross 12 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Same reason the U.S. and USSR were afraid of each other in the Cold War. | |
| ▲ | shusaku 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | People are just fear mongering to suggest Iran would use them or give them to those who would. The real issue here is that once you have them, you basically entrench yourself as a regional power. If the regime started falling out of favor, all their neighbors would be obliged to come to their aid to protect the nukes. Also, you would be far more limited in how you fight your proxy war. These are the things the involved parties are considering, not Armageddon fantasies. | |
| ▲ | dismalaf 13 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | [flagged] | | |
| ▲ | lostlogin 11 hours ago | parent [-] | | Would they? How would they deliver it? If they were caught trying to do it, what would happen? Why is an Iranian weapon somehow different do one held by any other country? Countries with them usually don’t use them, and the one that has is attacking Iran. |
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| ▲ | motorest 13 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | [flagged] | | |
| ▲ | MaxPock 12 hours ago | parent [-] | | They woke up and started bombing Israel for no apparent reason or they are responding to Israeli attacks ? | | |
| ▲ | motorest 12 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | > They woke up and started bombing Israel for no apparent reason or they are responding to Israeli attacks ? You failed to answer my question. Why? Check out YouTube and see the high rate of ballistic missiles thrown at Israel. Those existed for years, and were developed for this exact purpose. It just so happened they didn't have the nuclear warhead yet. I repeat the question: are you really asking why a country would be afraid of a regime which is literally raining ballistic missiles over them? | | |
| ▲ | MaxPock 11 hours ago | parent [-] | | 1.Israel bombed Iran
2.Iran is bombing Israel back How is it supposed to work ? |
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| ▲ | 9dev 12 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Reducing the Middle East conflict so much makes the entire discussion useless. If you want to point at someone guilty, look at the British who fucked up Palestine big time. Everything since then is a spiral of revenge and spite. |
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| ▲ | snapetom 13 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | [flagged] | | |
| ▲ | throw310822 13 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | I don't think you realise how ignorant and racist is this idea that an entire religion and country of 90 million doesn't behave like normal human beings. | | |
| ▲ | raffraffraff 12 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Have you lived in Iran? It's not a whole country of 90 million people who will shout "Push the button!". Most of them are unwillingly imprisoned under a regime lead by the religious zealots who will push that button, even if it means destruction of themselves and their population. Or at least, that's the assumption that the west must make, based their religious views and their past rhetoric. | | |
| ▲ | throw310822 12 hours ago | parent [-] | | Which is their past rhetoric? As for their religious views, hasn't their supreme leader declared multiple times that nuclear weapons are prohibited by their religion? | | |
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| ▲ | sfe22 11 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | It doesn’t take 90 million iranians to push a button. | | |
| ▲ | hajile 6 hours ago | parent [-] | | Here in the US, our soldiers insert their nuclear keys and await instructions to turn them several times per day. If even just ONE of the hundreds of pairs of soldiers turns the key, then ALL the nukes get launched. 99.999999% of Americans have no say either. The truth is that Iran doesn't want to take out the holy sites in Israel and if martyrdom were the real goal, then Iran would have started all-out war with Israel decades ago. |
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| ▲ | throw2235 12 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | [dead] | |
| ▲ | ta12653421 12 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | There was a very interesting "street walk video" by a somewhat-famous travelling-blogger, he visited Afghanistan, talked to a lot of people, created a lot of footage of their daily life, asking about the regime etc. This video got blocked after publishing by a political action group / NGO, it came back online only after dozens of other YouTube channels reported that. And yes - this video depicted life of people in a theocracy ;-) | | |
| ▲ | LtWorf 10 hours ago | parent [-] | | You can cherry pick and show anything you want. I can go to USA, interview a few crazies (and there's a lot of them) and then make a documentary. | | |
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| ▲ | kennywinker 12 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Isn't christianity the one that has martyrdom at its core? Jesus was martyred for our sins after all. Christians can’t really be trusted not to sacrifice themselves at the drop of a roman helmet. Or not. Perhaps, we understand the nuances of that because we were raised in a christian culture, but don’t understand the nuances of martyrdom in islam because we weren’t raised in a muslim culture? I know that’s true for me, i assume that’s true for any non-muslim who claims stuff about the core of islam. | |
| ▲ | asadm 12 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | You are wrong. Muslims don't wake up trying to get martydom asap. Protecting life (own included) is top-most goal, so much that even harming your body (tattoos etc) is strictly prohibited. | |
| ▲ | kergonath 9 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | It’s bizarre to read that in a world where news have been dominated by American conservatives trying to bring us to the end times for years now. Bizarre, disturbing, and terrifying. | |
| ▲ | Alex-C137 12 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | This is an extremely insane take and should be deleted immediately. Disgusting | | |
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| ▲ | jhanschoo 12 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | The first thing I would want to do after wearing Israeli shoes would be to find a way to flee immediately and disassociate myself from being complicit with the ongoing genocide (or to resist it if I were in such a position), Iran's hostility be damned. In which case, I suppose that any resistance I might do would have the state call me an anti-Semite. | |
| ▲ | Krasnol 11 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | You make it sound like it's some natural law that they have to destroy the state of Israel. I mean, did you even think about this when you heard it for the first time? Do you think your common Iranian citizen wake up in the morning and feels the natural urge to destroy Israel? What is this? Be serious. This is no justification to ignore international law. But that's dead now. Nobody will ever care again until we're done with the next big war or something. Bomb away... | | |
| ▲ | simonh 8 hours ago | parent [-] | | I don't think the average Iranian citizen cares at all about Israel, one way or the other, but they don't have any say in Iranian state politics. There's no natural law setting the mullahs against the existence of Israel, as I said they think and vocally declaim publicly that it is divine law. Don't believe me, just look up what they say. I do think the way this is being handled is a travesty though. There was a functioning agreement with international monitoring in place in 2016 and Trump tore it up. Since then Iran has increased their enrichment capacity, and their stockpile of enriched material by 22 time above what they committed to in that agreement. Canceling that deal was a foolish blunder that had lead us to this. Ultimately the only path to long term peace has to be the fall of theocratic rule in Iran, but that's a mater for the Iranian people. It's quite possible the nuclear question could have been managed, but just as with NAFTA Trump saw personal political advantage is scrapping an old deal in order to rebrand it as his better deal, but dropped the ball because he doesn't understand the geopolitics, and here we are. | | |
| ▲ | Krasnol 5 hours ago | parent [-] | | I think it's important, especially so shortly after the fact not to mix up things. Trump wanted another deal and told Bibi not to attack. Bibi didn't want that and attacked. Trump jumped on the bandwagon and now everybody is talking about him again. | | |
| ▲ | simonh 24 minutes ago | parent [-] | | All absolutely true. In fact we're only in this situation because Trump cancelled the nuclear deal with Iran, along with as many treaties as he could get away with so he could get the credit of renegotiating them. Except for the ones he never got round to, like the one with Iran. So, here we are. I don't particularly blame the Israelis though, and there's broad support for this over there, it's not just Netanyahu. |
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| ▲ | asadm 12 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | ... so you preemptively attack every neighbor and commit genocide? | | |
| ▲ | lostmsu 12 hours ago | parent [-] | | Was this bombing a genocide? | | |
| ▲ | kennywinker 12 hours ago | parent [-] | | The word “and” can be used to delineate two linked ideas. Sometimes they’re closely linked ideas like bombing someone AND accusing them of being two weeks away from nukes for decades. Sometimes they’re less closely linked ideas, like bombing someone AND committing genocide against someone else. |
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| ▲ | throw310822 13 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | [flagged] | | |
| ▲ | jdietrich 12 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | The dehumanising thing is to steadfastly believe that deep down everyone holds secular liberal values, regardless of their words and actions. Secular discussion about conflict in the Middle East frequently discounts the possibility that self-professed religious fundamentalists are in fact religious fundamentalists. A lot of Israeli settlers really do believe that they are fulfilling a sacred duty. A lot of Palestinians really do believe that becoming a martyr for al-Aqsa guarantees them an eternity in paradise. A lot of American Evangelicals really do believe that conflict in the Middle East will bring about the day of judgement. I might believe that we live in a godless and meaningless universe in which death is final, but that puts me in a very small minority. Most people -throughout history and across the world - frequently act in ways that are totally irrational from a secular perspective, but are perfectly logical within a framework of faith. | |
| ▲ | 9dev 12 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | You’d need to make a distinction between the Iranian regime, a corrupt band of thieves in charge of the government, infused by religion, and the Iranian people, who have been suffering through this for almost half a century. Any criticism is directed against the former, and fully valid: These people are fanatical idiots, albeit dangerous. | |
| ▲ | sreekanth850 12 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | That is why they formed the Axis of Resistance. They will act through their proxies. And imagine if Hezbollah or the Houthis got nuclear weapons, the whole world would be threatened. | | |
| ▲ | throw310822 12 hours ago | parent [-] | | > the whole world would be threatened. Why? What do Hezbollah or the Houthis care about the world? They fight Israel, which is a genocidal regime. This even ignoring the ludicrous idea that if they got a nuclear weapon they could deliver it anywhere. | | |
| ▲ | sreekanth850 5 hours ago | parent [-] | | Why do Al-quaeda organzied september 11 attacks? I can give countless example to show that they doesnt need a reason to attack. Its just religion that matters and their goal of global islamisation.
Recently in pahalgam they killed 26 civllians by asking their religion and verifying it by asking them to pray. You said israel regime as genocidal? What was the cause of all this issues? How many was killed in october attacks in israel?
Why did they held hostages from different countries?
So, yes i strongly believe that those terrorist doesnt need a reason to attack. Their goal is global islamisation.
Khamenei had openly said that their number 1 enemy is America. |
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| ▲ | dotancohen 12 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > To suggest Iran would do it anyway is equivalent to saying that they're completely, crazy, fanatical, genocidal and stupid
It's the Iranian government saying they'd do it, not westerners. And you seem to have some sort of culture complex. Their culture is different than yours (not better, not worse, but different) and for them dying to liberate land from infidels is not crazy, it is the highest honour their society bestows.There is nothing racist or dehumanising about acknowledging cultures different from your own. In fact, I would say that assuming everybody adheres to your cultural values is the racist position. | |
| ▲ | dartharva 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | To suggest Iran would do it anyway would actually just be taking Iranian leadership at their word. | |
| ▲ | JodieBenitez 12 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | [flagged] | | |
| ▲ | throw310822 12 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | They might be fanatical, but to the point of desiring the destruction of themselves, their loved ones, their country, their culture, their literature, their history.. just to inflict genocide on others? This is a dehumanising thought. Besides, the fanatical leader of that country has said in clear terms that they consider nuclear weapons forbidden by their religion. They have also said in clear terms that oppose the "Israeli regime" and the existence of Israel as a political entity- that's what they mean by "destruction of Israel", not nuking it. | | |
| ▲ | nine_k 12 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | In 1930s and early 1940s, emperor Hirohito of Japan approved of a number of terrible things done by the Japanese imperial armed forces to people of China and Korea, and warred bitterly with the US. But once he realized that he's losing the war, and Japan can be just destroyed by nuclear bombs, he decided to surrender, in order to avoid the complete destruction of his country and senseless deaths of Japanese people. (This is somehow documented.) He cared about the Japanese and Japan more than he cared about his majesty, or honor, or abstract ideas; he agreed to abdicate of all his powers. Sadly, I highly doubt that the regime of the ayatollahs is going to act like that, instead of fighting fanatically to the bitter end and the last drop of Iranian blood if need be. (A bitter end is very far from the current situation though.) | |
| ▲ | Nathanba 12 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | yes I think so, if they believe that they are stopping another genocide then they'd conceivably be willing to risk their own genocide to help do what's right. |
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| ▲ | tda 12 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Isn't Israel a defacto theocracy too? | | |
| ▲ | nine_k 12 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | No, Israel is not using religious norms or holy scriptures as the law, and establishes no state religion. Iran's constitution directly says that the norms of the Sharia law are its foundation, and makes Shia Islam the state religion. | | |
| ▲ | helge9210 12 hours ago | parent [-] | | "Jewish State" literally means religious norms and holy scriptures are considered a law. Rabbinical courts are part of the Israeli legal system, which operates religious courts in parallel to the civil court system. | | |
| ▲ | nine_k 11 hours ago | parent [-] | | The rabbinical courts exist for sorting out religious issues, such as religious marriages and divorces of Jewish citizens. Judaism is not even special-cased: «Such courts exist for the recognized religious communities in Israel, including Muslim courts, Christian courts, and Jewish Rabbinical courts.» (Wikipedia). The Basic Laws, which sort of comprise the makeshift constitution of Israel, don't seem to make any religious references, but rather refer to the founding UN principles like human rights. | | |
| ▲ | helge9210 10 hours ago | parent [-] | | My apartment rental agreement had a clause all "all disagreements are to be resolved in rabbinical court". Reach of the religious courts is unlimited. Even civil courts are allowed to refer to holy texts if the law is not clear. | | |
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| ▲ | throw310822 12 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | I would say the US is too at this point, given continued references to god by its leaders. A country where a senator can say he supports a certain foreign policy because it's written in the Bible? | |
| ▲ | JodieBenitez 12 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | No, it's not. | |
| ▲ | HaZeust 12 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | [flagged] | | |
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| ▲ | farzd 12 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | [flagged] | |
| ▲ | recroad 13 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | [flagged] | | |
| ▲ | intermerda 12 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | > Why are you assuming that Iran wants to destroy Israel? I'm guessing from the words and actions of Iranian leaders: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Destruction_of_Israel_in_Irani... | | |
| ▲ | recroad 11 hours ago | parent [-] | | What are you pointing at there? Their position from 1979 which is 12 years after 1967? Also, let’s leave rhetoric aside. What is the actual record of violence between Israel and anyone else? It’s not even close https://www.ochaopt.org/data/casualties Israel here is the aggressor. Not acknowledging that makes no sense and doesn’t leave grounds for any meaningful discussion. | | |
| ▲ | untrust 11 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | From the wiki they linked: In 2015, former Basij chief and senior RIGC officer, Mohammad Reza Naqdi, stated in an interview that the destruction of Israel is "nonnegotiable". In addition, according to the Times of Israel, Naqdi said that during the summer Gaza conflict with Israel, a significant portion of Hamas’s weaponry, training, and technical expertise was provided by Iran.[27][28] In 2019, Naqdi made a direct call for the destruction of Israel during a televised interview. Naqdi asserted that the Zionist regime must be "annihilated and destroyed," asserting "This will definitely happen." He declared his intention to one day raise the flag of the Islamic Revolution over Jerusalem. | | |
| ▲ | recroad 6 hours ago | parent [-] | | The Zionist state as it is since 1967 has to be dismantled and it must go back to its 1967 borders. That’s international law. Also, you seem to be putting a lot of weight from words 10 years ago by former officials when current Israeli officials including the head of state is clearly voicing support for genocide. The otherising of brown Muslims comes easy. |
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| ▲ | nkmnz 10 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Rhetoric aside. What was the actual record of violence when Hitler published „My Struggle“ in 1925, laying out his ideas of solving the „Jewish question“? Why should one believe the evil of it lays out its plans way in advance? | | |
| ▲ | recroad 6 hours ago | parent [-] | | By 1925 the Beer Hall Putsch had already happened and Hitler was in jail for high treason. | | |
| ▲ | nkmnz an hour ago | parent [-] | | By 2025 Iran had already been known to sponsor the acts of war the Houthis are performing against Israel. |
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| ▲ | motorest 12 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | > Why are you assuming that Iran wants to destroy Israel? Everything I’ve actually seen is the complete opposite: it’s Israel that clearly wants to destroy Israel. Even by your own logic, do you believe that having a country threaten your existence is not reason enough to want them destroyed? | | |
| ▲ | recroad 6 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | This whole “threaten your existence” is a clutch in your argument. It smells like “but Hamas…” and tries to create a precondition of condemnation of one side which also happens to be the victim. | |
| ▲ | recroad 12 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | destroy Iran I mean | | |
| ▲ | motorest 12 hours ago | parent [-] | | If you pay attention to my question, you'll notice that it isn't conditional to who made threats to who. Do you believe this influences your answer? |
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| ▲ | AlecSchueler 11 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | > they believe they have a religious duty to destroy the state of Israel. Do they? What is this based on? My understanding was that they were reacting to a pattern of imperialism of which Israel was the crown jewel. Is there actually something inherent about the Shi'ite religion which says Israel must fall? | | |
| ▲ | loandbehold 11 hours ago | parent [-] | | Iran was one of the first countries in the Middle East to recognize Israel. But it all changed since Islamic Revolution. Their official position since than have been that Israel cannot exist. They don't even refer to it as Israel but as "Zionist Regime". It's their official public position and what they say on their (government controlled) TV. They've been fighting proxy war with Israel since 80s. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Destruction_of_Israel_in_Irani... | | |
| ▲ | AlecSchueler 11 hours ago | parent [-] | | I'm not sure that answers my question. They could have a political belief that Israel must fall but you haven't shown a reason to believe it's based on their religious beliefs. Obviously the two things are tied up together but I don't believe that if a Jewish homeland state had been created in Western Europe or in Antarctica that Iran would have an issue with it. Their problem is surely that Israel represents an historical and continuing power play by Western forces, a springboard from which the US and it's allies can encourage coups, wage wars and dominate the trade of the natural resources in the region. It seems like a very practical concern more than a religious one. | | |
| ▲ | loandbehold 11 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | It doesn't matter for Israel weather it's based on religious belief or not. But Iran does frame their opposition in Islamic context in its communication to Iranian people. E.g. Khamenei says things like "fighting Israel to liberate Palestine is an obligation and an Islamic jihad."
https://www.rferl.org/a/iran-supreme-leader-israel-cancerous... | | |
| ▲ | AlecSchueler 11 hours ago | parent [-] | | It might not matter for Israel but it matters for me as an Irishman watching the rest of the world getting sucked into a conflict. Framing it as a religious opposition paints Iran as an irrational actor which can't be reasoned with, when it appears to me that it's behaving the way it's been pushed to behave by encroaching colonial forces. I don't believe in Islam or in Judaism but I do believe in radical discourse and trying to understand the position of the other. Saying "it's their religion to be bloody violent and destructive, what can we do?" throws any space for understanding out of the window. |
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| ▲ | Ray20 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | >but you haven't shown a reason to believe it's based on their religious beliefs. Their religious leaders like literally come out and say, "This is based on our religious beliefs." | | |
| ▲ | AlecSchueler 10 hours ago | parent [-] | | Does every Shi'ite hold these same beliefs then? What is the religious basis for the belief? Henry VIII used religious justification for breaking off from the pope as well but surely we're grown up enough to recognise those movements came about from a desire for political autonomy more than disagreements over bible interpretations? | | |
| ▲ | simonh 8 hours ago | parent [-] | | You're looking for this. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Destruction_of_Israel_in_Irani... >In 2024, Ali Khamenei told Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh: "The divine promise to eliminate the Zionist entity will be fulfilled and we will see the day when Palestine will rise from the river to the sea." In particular check out the "clerics" section of that article for the statements of multiple leading religious authorities in the regime on the religious justifications. | | |
| ▲ | AlecSchueler 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | Well, to start off I want to reiterate what I said about the reformation era political upheavals in Europe and religion being used as a justification and easy explanation for very real geopolitical concerns. But just for argument's sake and to respect your position I always want to point out that your quote subtly talks about "the Zionist entity" and not about Israel or Jews. So I can assume that you're equating Israel with Zionism, which is arguably fair. Now the question I would have is do we recognise the inherent violence of Zionism and, if so, why do we decentre that in our conversation and instead focus on the reaction to it? |
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| ▲ | nec4b 8 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Are you proposing moving Israel to another location? | | |
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| ▲ | ngcazz 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| They were not inching towards nukes though, were they? And why is the threat calculus here their fault when the Israelis attacked Iran unprovoked? This top-voted comment is consent-manufacturing tripe. |
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| ▲ | mcv 7 hours ago | parent [-] | | Israel's attack wasn't entirely unprovoked; Iran frequently calls for attacks on Israel, wiping them from the face of the earth, and funding organizations that attack Israel. The fear that they might use nuclear weapons offensively against Israel is very real. Note that I'm not a fan of Israel, condemn their genocide in Gaza, and consider Netanyahu a war criminal. I'm also not a fan of this attack on Iran and prefer a peaceful and democratic overthrow of that regime. But calling the attack unprovoked is not entirely correct; Iran spends a lot of time provoking Israel. | | |
| ▲ | ngcazz 6 hours ago | parent [-] | | If you are familiar with how Israel came to be founded, and how Iran became an Islamic republic, you'll see how that is a naive narrative. For one, Balfour's illegal concession of Palestine to the Israelis had the clear strategic purpose of keeping pan-Arabism at bay. The ensuing establishment of Israel - by the UNSCOP, in contravention of international law - had the side effect of turbocharging settler colonialist violence (1948 and ongoing) and expansionism (e.g. 1967 annexations). That was the background to the 1953 CIA coup, and the eventual Islamic revolution in 1979. Sure, it's not the liberal democratic outcome Iranians would've liked, but it reclaimed sovereignty lost, and they are aware of the historic role of Israel and their strategic and moral position in relation to it, regardless of their regime. Bottom line, if we look closely at who really is threatening whom, the reactions of the Iranians are probably quite understandable | | |
| ▲ | mcv 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | As far as I'm aware, the background of the 1953 coup was oil. The democratic government of Iran want to nationalize the oil industry, and western oil companies did like that. On top of that, Iran was willing to do business with the USSR. That's why US and UK secret services conspired with the ayatollahs to overthrow the democratic government and replace it with the shah. No shit the result of 1979 is not what the Iranians wanted; there have been frequent democratic uprisings since then. Most Iranians didn't really care one way or the other about Israel, although you can't really blame them for not liking the US. And Israel has never really had an issue with Iran. But it's the ayatollahs who have been extremely hostile towards Israel, and have spent decades funding Hezbollah attacks against Israel. I'm not going to defend Israel; they've committed plenty of crimes. And war crimes. But almost entirely against the Palestinians, not against Iran. The Middle East is complex, and there's no simply good vs evil there, but the ayatollahs are definitely not on the side of good. |
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| ▲ | mathgradthrow 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| they were sprinting covertly. Thats why this happened. |
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| ▲ | 9 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
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| ▲ | seydor 13 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| > by having a theocracy they Religion is just another ideology, and it s not like Islam has a specific position about nuclear energy |
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| ▲ | hajile 5 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Iran's current situation is because their dictator DOES have a position about nuclear energy and nukes. Energy is fine, but nukes are haram. This is THE reason they haven't built any nukes the last 40+ years. Changing a religious decree of that nature requires a very big excuse which has never existed. Israel and the US threatening Iran's existence and threatening to kill millions of Muslims is the ONE thing I can think of that would allow Khamenei an "out" to actually build a nuke. | |
| ▲ | ebb_earl_co 13 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | In my view, religion is the set of ideologies that plays the children’s game of one-upping each other’s numbers until one of the children says “infinity” and sticks fingers in ears, sayin the game is over. By this I mean the religious ideological move is eternal punishment for what they deem unsatisfactory or eternal bliss for compliance, no other branch. Other ideologies invoke similar (infinite growth in capitalism, e.g.) but those are hyperbole for proselytization. An ideology that attempts to persuade with either the most egregious stick possible or the most delicious carrot possible makes religion the least palatable of ideologies. |
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| ▲ | littlestymaar 11 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| > What they were doing, inching towards nukes, was a horrible move. In their position, you either sprint covertly and not play at all. You're misunderstanding their position and that's why it seems idiotic to you: they stopped working on building nukes back in 2003, after that date all they did was using the ability to get nukes as a negotiation leverage, that's how they got JPCoA in 2015 and since the US unilaterally left it in 2018 and the rest of the Western world failed to keep it working (that would have required courage to anger the US), Iran was seeking to force a new deal by raising the bar a bit: they announced back in 2022 that they'd enrich up to 60% in order to increase their negotiation leverage, but they didn't go past that stage nor did they work on the militarization tech in the meantime, because they weren't aiming to get the bomb at all. |
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| ▲ | dandanua 11 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| "In God we trust" |
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| ▲ | belter 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| > What happened today likely saved millions of Iranian lives. Today strike on Iran nuclear sites endangers millions of American and Israeli lives. It teaches Tehran the same lesson North Korea learned long ago. That only a nuclear deterrent secures a regime survival. To believe Iran will absorb this blow without striking back is not merely naive, it is dangerously delusional. It is also clear any Iranian nuclear critical assets were moved to alternative secret sites long before the strikes, as satellite photos show: "Satellite images show activity at Iran’s Fordo nuclear facility before U.S. air strikes" - https://www.cnbc.com/2025/06/22/satellite-images-show-activi... |
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| ▲ | 1oooqooq 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| or, you know, they just want power generators, like they claimed for decades now and all the UN auditors confirmed every time? |
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| ▲ | recroad 13 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Thank you, great liberator. Please bomb us more to save our lives. |
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| ▲ | Gareth321 6 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | It seems fairly clear that Israel is targeting military sites and not civilians. On this basis alone would should feel hopeful for the 90 million innocent people who long for freedom from their oppressors. Your comment seems to imply that Israel is attacking civilians, and that those civilians are aligned with the theocratic dictators. On both points, you would be entirely incorrect. | | |
| ▲ | recroad 6 hours ago | parent [-] | | Are you seriously suggesting that Israel doesn’t target civilians? Are you following the events of the last 2 years? | | |
| ▲ | Gareth321 6 hours ago | parent [-] | | Re-read my comment please because it appears you did not. | | |
| ▲ | recroad 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | I think maybe you shouldn't see Muslims as a homogenous block of people with the same taste by saying stuff like "90 million" as if you know what they want. Your premise of Israel not targeting civilians is not serious. Just turn a TV channel on that isn't US mainstream media (which is actively manipulating to you). |
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| ▲ | hackerknew 12 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | You’d be surprised, but the people of Iran have been waiting for this moment for years. There are 80 million people who want the end of the regime. Whether this fulfills that goal, we will see, but anything that weakens the regime is good for the Iranian people. | | |
| ▲ | mullingitover 11 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Oh! I remember this one. The next part goes, “They’re going to greet us as liberators and give our troops flowers.” And then twenty years from now everyone will say they were always against it. | | |
| ▲ | Kye 9 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | It was true in some cases, but it was more "thank you, now please leave." Almost a direct quote from one report from an embedded reporter I'd cite directly if it weren't near impossible to find things online from that far back. | |
| ▲ | spacecadet 10 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | The problem is the timeline... MIC takes over and it becomes about building, selling, and dropping bombs instead of rebuilding and GTFO. During Iraq the US military deployed some insanely creative strategies with the deployment of concrete- yet nothing meaningful was actually built for the people of Iraq... |
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| ▲ | recroad 12 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | You hear and read about it, but it’s still surreal to see the effects of propaganda in real life. I’m glad I’m old enough to have seen this show before live. | |
| ▲ | gattilorenz 12 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Even those who want a regime change tend to dislike getting bombs on their heads. And if anything, the last 20 years taught us that revolutions imposed from the outside never work | | |
| ▲ | hackerknew 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | Not on their heads. On the weapons and heads of the regime. The regime is not the Iranian people. |
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| ▲ | InsideOutSanta 9 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Nothing is more effective at unifying a country than being attacked by a foreign power. This is how Bush secured a second term and how Giuliani became America's Mayor, two individuals who were previously disrespected and/or hated by a majority of their constituents. | |
| ▲ | jokowueu 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Iraq flash backs , they were sure very happy to greet their liberators , it's amazing to see propaganda's effects working in action | |
| ▲ | dimator 12 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | how does this do anything except strengthen the resolve of those thugs in power? even those against the regime will want retribution for an attack on their home land. regime change has never worked, not with actual boots on the ground, let alone targeted air strikes. | | |
| ▲ | dlahoda 10 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | yugoslavia? | | |
| ▲ | xoac 9 hours ago | parent [-] | | The bombing campaign united the people against the new enemy: “the west”, and arguably gave Milosevic some more time to rule. I survived this, trust me that even if your regime is shit, people don’t want to be bombed and will unite against the aggressor. This is in part because even if the aggressor claims that they are “bombing the regime” they are usually in fact bombing the country’s infrastructure, industry, urban areas etc. |
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| ▲ | throwaway447573 12 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | I don't see Hitler and Mussolini's grandsons ruling Germany and Italy. | | |
| ▲ | icepush 10 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Believe it or not, Mussolini's granddaughter is a fairly influential former politician within Italy | |
| ▲ | portaouflop 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Anecdotally Mussolini’s granddaughter has been a member of both houses of the Italian Parliament as well as the European Parliament. | |
| ▲ | UncleMeat 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Germany was split in half for 45 years. The Marshall Plan was the largest economic development operation in history. Meanwhile, the GOP has decided that the entire concept of foreign economic aid is bad because a theater somewhere was too woke. Regime change and nation building worked so well in Afghanistan and Iraq. Onward to more death and suffering, I guess. | |
| ▲ | nomat 11 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | how much did it cost to rebuild germany? and how many trillions did we flush down the drain attempting to put together a functioning government in iraq and afghanistan? where is DOGE when you actually need them? | | |
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| ▲ | fifilura 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | I believe you that the regime is hated. But can you define what "this moment" is that they have been waiting for? I don't think "this moment" helps them along the way. It is rather a reason for more internal repression. | | |
| ▲ | hackerknew 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | The moment is that the regime is severely weakened and is struggling to deal with an external war, with very few weapons left. Many heads of their military were eliminated and they are scrambling to put the pieces back together. Couple that with a population of at least 80 million people who hate the regime and only didn’t fight back because the regime had physical power over them. |
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| ▲ | vasco 12 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | How many Iranians do you know that told you that? | | | |
| ▲ | dreghgh 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | I live in a major world city with considerable immigrant populations from many parts of the world, and saw some of the pro-Palestine demonstrations yesterday. There were numerous groups of Iranians protesting against Israel's actions and in support of the Palestinians. These are Iranians living abroad so can be expected statistically to be less supportive of the current government than the average Iranian resident. The counter-protest, mainly of pro-Israel demonstrators, this time also had Iranians, demonstrating against the current regime (and broadly in support of Israel). All the Iranian flags in this very small group were the Shah-era design with the lion. The visibly Iranian groups in the pro-Palestinian demo vastly outnumbered the counter protest. They seemed quite ideologically diverse. There were some people holding pictures of the ayatollah with the words 'No Surrender'. But there were also groups with the sign "don't bomb us and claim it's for women's rights" (can't remember exact wording). Groups including women with headscarves, other groups with only bare headed women. As well as the current official flag with the swords, I saw people holding the lion flag, and others with the neutral tricolour without emblem. So at least some of the people present were anti the current regime, but supported the Palestinians in the current conflict. Obviously a very selective sampling for many reasons, but far from what you might expect if almost all Iranians were united against their current government. | | |
| ▲ | hackerknew 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | People living outside Iran participating in these protests have no idea what they are doing. On the reddit NewIran sub, they were mocking a picture of somebody at one of those rally’s holding a giant IRGC flag… upside-down. I wouldn’t use numbers of “useful idiots” showing up at rallies as a way of demonstrating internal support for the Iranian regime. Surveys suggest around 70-80% are anti-regime, which makes sense considering the regime’s history of hangings and imprisonment for minor offenses. The people of Iran want the regime to end. |
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| ▲ | stuckkeys 9 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | There is some truth to that, but if it was that important for them to overthrow the regime…why not do it internally but instead they wait for someone to bomb them? 80mill is not a small number. You are saying 87% asked for this lol. | |
| ▲ | tsimionescu 12 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Imagine a terrorist attack against the Trump admin in the following weeks, and someone coming in to say "you'd be surprised, but the people of the USA have been waiting for this moment for months. There are 100 million people who want an end to Trump". People never, ever, under any circumstances, want to be attacked and bombed by another country. Not even the biggest dissidents rotting in regime jails would welcome this. Not even a little bit. | | |
| ▲ | simgt 12 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Even most children or partners of abusive people feel defensive when an outsider intervenes. Nevermind getting your country bombed by strangers. Spending days reading news that hide people behind symbols make some forget that we're dealing with human relationship. | |
| ▲ | hackerknew 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | You write this because you don’t understand what people in Iran have been dealing with for the past 45 years. It is one thing to not like the political leadership, but another thing if the government oppresses the population. Those of us in America are privileged that we can’t fathom what that means. | | |
| ▲ | tsimionescu 38 minutes ago | parent [-] | | I'm not an American, and live in country that was under an even more authoritarian regime until fairly recently. While I was born just as the regime was ending, I know plenty from my parents about how they felt. And I stand by what I said: even under the worse circumstances, no one ever desires to be bombarded. |
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| ▲ | Ray20 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | >People never, ever, under any circumstances, want to be attacked and bombed by another country. Depends on the effectiveness of the bombing. | |
| ▲ | fastball 12 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | If the attack was specifically targeting the US to encourage the downfall of Trump, I am sure there are millions of Americans that would be celebrating. Spend some time on Bluesky – they'd love it over there if the attacks didn't literally hit them. They can't seem to see much further than that. | | |
| ▲ | autobodie 10 hours ago | parent [-] | | Such bombs would necessarily need to fall in American cities, so the scenario you describe is not possible. | | |
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| ▲ | vFunct 9 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Please don't promote war. Ain't no one going to overthrow the Iranian government now that we attacked them. The US and Israel just screwed up everything there. Thanks. | |
| ▲ | bobxmax 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | That's nonsense. This is what westerners like to tell themselves because all they read is western media coverage of Iran. No, 80 million people don't want to end the regime. Westerners can't fathom the fact that not everyone wants to live in a democratic free-for-all.... so clearly anyone who doesn't deserves bombing. Pathetic. Imperialism is encoded in the DNA of Americans at this point. | | |
| ▲ | breppp 8 hours ago | parent [-] | | It's a bit more complex than that, you have a country with two decades of mass demonstrations that were brutally suppressed and a new generation that no longer sees itself as religious while living in a theocracy. they do have a massive popular support issue over there | | |
| ▲ | bobxmax an hour ago | parent [-] | | None of what you said is true. They still enjoy large amounts of popularity - are you forgetting the entire country virtually coming to demonstrate when we slaughtered their commander a few years ago? | | |
| ▲ | breppp an hour ago | parent [-] | | Not sure, how "nothing of what i said is true" I didn't say there are no supporters, but there is an asymmetry between supporters and protestors.
Supporters are being brought by buses, are often members of the Basij or other government functions and generally have incentives to do so.
Protestors however risk extremely painful death and torture. There is support for the regime, usually outside of large cities, but there's a reason there were large protests in almost every single year since 2016 for some reading you can take a look at https://www.taylorfrancis.com/reader/read-online/234eb6fd-85... There's over 40% of responders that do not claim their religion is Shia, but rather Atheist, Humanist, etc. That's more than the people that define themselves as Shia, in a Shia theocracy. This also correlates with skepticism of government media and rejection of Hijab |
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| ▲ | Hikikomori 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | US didn't like it the last time the Iranian people got their regime change. | |
| ▲ | anticodon 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > Whether this fulfills that goal, we will see, but anything that weakens the regime is good for the Iranian people. Oh, enough to look at Libya, Syria, Iraq, to see what happens next: 1. Lots of infrastructure would be destroyed. It's the first thing NATO does in any invasion: bomb powerplants, water treatment plants, airports, hospitals, business centers (remember, that Iraq invasion started with destroying Baghdad business center, it was shown in all Western media). Infrastructure is super-expensive to rebuild, many countries in the world have no resources to build decent infrastructure. 2. At least several millions of Iranians would die. It's obvious. Somebody's moms and dads, somebody's children. The bombs do not choose. And we all know that West is indifferent to the deaths of non-Western non-white population (remember, e.g. killings and war crimes in Afghanistan). 3. In the end the country will end up in half-feudal anarchistic ruins (like Libya) or with "democratic" puppet government. Any outcome will allow selling Iran oil and gas to the West for the price of water, further lowering living standards of Iran. I fail to see a single benefit for anyone living in Iran. | |
| ▲ | chgs 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | [flagged] | |
| ▲ | pjpyao 12 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | [flagged] | |
| ▲ | k4rli 9 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | [flagged] | |
| ▲ | deepsun 12 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | I know a similar precedent from Belarus, an Eastern European country. The population is way smaller, and their main problem is Moscow in the east, but it's the same sentiment -- please bomb us as we cannot throw out this regime ourselves, yes. Internet used to joke about US "freedom bombs", but it's taken quite seriously and positively there. | | |
| ▲ | brabel 11 hours ago | parent [-] | | My wife is from Belarus and I have been there many times. What you say in so ridiculous it’s hard to even respond with a serious answer. Just want to point out that they suffered the most under Nazis and would do anything to prevent being in another war. | | |
| ▲ | tazjin 11 hours ago | parent [-] | | US-aligned IT specialists are uniquely propagandized (they're one of the main targets of Western propaganda for good reason - they have outsized influence!), so don't expect many reality-compatible takes on this website. | | |
| ▲ | FpUser 9 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | I personally friends with many IT people and their families from Belarus (the company I used to work for brought whole bunch to Canada). Not a single one wants their country freedom bombed. | |
| ▲ | spacecadet 10 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Tech is MIC. |
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| ▲ | hashstring 11 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Thank you for putting it so clearly and bluntly. People lack common sense, but not their appetite to ingurgitate the daily three meals that the propaganda machines prepared for them. | |
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| ▲ | diggan 6 hours ago | parent [-] | | > Dictators are not the good the good guys, for their people or their neighbors. Trying to find a clear line of "good vs evil guys" is bound to led you down a bad path. Is how Iran treat people very shitty and outright evil? Yes. Does that mean other countries should feel OK with invading them to "liberate" them? Probably no and feels like a very dangerous line of thinking that could be used to invade basically any country, including the US itself. I don't think many people are arguing that Iran is some beacon of democracy and treating their people right, but regardless of that, we tend to favor sovereignty of nations for a good reason, yet it seems like some countries still struggle with accepting this. | | |
| ▲ | jonyt 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | Iran isn't being attacked because it's not nice to its own people (which is a shame really, all dictators and theocrats should worry for their lives). It's being attacked because it has ballistic missiles, a nuclear weapons program, a giant sign in the middle of Tehran counting down the existence of Israel and its leaders have repeatedly called for Israel's destruction. So weapon, opportunity and motive.
It's of course free to work towards the destruction of Israel but then it's hardly fair to complain that Israel may try to preempt that. | | |
| ▲ | diggan 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | > It's being attacked because it has ballistic missiles, a nuclear weapons program, a giant sign in the middle of Tehran counting down the existence of Israel and its leaders have repeatedly called for Israel's destruction Switch "Israel" with "Iran" and you have basically the same thing, but seemingly waging war against Israel would never be an option, would it? Because we accept the country's own sovereignty, as we should do with all countries. |
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