It's really hard to say, but probably not good (there was an Atlantic article about this last week). Part of the dynamic here is the idea that the SL can't back down without losing so much domestic credibility that he puts the regime at risk; being in a shooting war with the West probably reinforces the regime's position. The flip side of this is that I don't think there were many signs that the opposition was in position to challenge the SL any time soon.
They lack the capability to do much aside from disrupt shipping with SRBMs. They've taken down only one drone, which is one less than the Houthis. Their ballistic capability is heavily degraded. Their military leadership is gone. Their airforce is gone. Their air defense is gone. They're a paper tiger and I don't understand why people still think there's the prospect of some kind of grand retaliation. They're not holding back, they just can't do anything.
Well. Some guys with a tiny fraction of the funding Iran has managed to fly a few airliners into some buildings a few years back.
So, I imagine there are perhaps unconventional options available to a country which is fully willing to fund terrorist groups for decades against a country with a very large amount of largely unprotected infrastructure.
But who knows? It just seems a bit premature to argue Iran's defeat. Feels a bit... mission accomplished.
They were already doing that in Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, Palestine, Iraq and Bahrain. They weren't holding back before, and they won't hold back after. But their ability to do that is now severely degraded. The officials overseeing these programs are now gone. The weapons they were sending to these groups are now reduced.
From your link:
"However, despite the public opposition of Pakistani officials, multiple former Prime Ministers gave covert permission to the United States to carry out these attacks."
Makes sense, they were in the tribal areas where I assume the government was losing control of their monsters.
I'm not sure I understand what you mean, perhaps my comment sounded snarky? But I don't think it's unwarranted either.
9/11 was not a direct response to any US invasion, but the London and Madrid bombings were a direct response to the second Iraq invasion. I would be surprised if there will be no terrorist attacks on American soil.
I don't know why you are so confident that no terrorist attacks will happen this time. I would argue that now it's even worse, because Israel is pulling strings. Every single Trump "deal" has fallen flat, he just now realized that smear campaigns don't work on an international level. But bombing a country to submit them to sign some deal is not going to work out either - you need to bomb AND talk smooth to get something, but Trump is basically just talking shit as usual. It won't work out unless he blows it up into a full ground invasion, with countless people dying - including Americans.
Iran will do some nominal attacks. There is little power projection that they will do. I bet they will focus their attacks on Israel which has been happening already.
Because Iran's leadership isn’t stupid. They know a full-on attack against the US would bring overwhelming retaliation and possibly collapse the regime. They've been hit before (like when Soleimani was killed) and their response was pretty measured. They’ll do something to save face. Maybe hit a US base through proxies or ramp up attacks on Israel-but a direct war with the US? Not worth it for them. Too much to lose.
I don’t think we’d see something like 9/11 again. Attacks on the US homeland bring a level of blowback that even Iran’s hardliners would want to avoid. But I totally agree there’ll be fallout in the region. Expect more proxy attacks on US bases, shipping lanes, and of course Israel. That kind of long, drawn-out pressure is way more in line with how Iran operates. Not total war
But why does Iran get to take workers hostage for 444 days in 1979, conduct Beirut embassy bombing in 1983, then the Beirut barracks bombing in same year, 1982-1991 Hezbollah (Iran sponsored) kidnappings of Americans in Lebanon, TWA 847 Hijacking, December 1983 Kuwait Embassy Bombing, June 1996 Khobar Towers Bombing, multiple EFP attacks on US forces in Iraq, May 2011 Camp Liberty Rocket Attack, 2011 IRGC plot to assassinate US officials, Dec 2019 Kirkuk base attack, etc
How is this any different than your 9/11 scenario and Iran has been doing it for 40 years?
You can convince yourself that you're waging a war of Good vs Evil.
The truth is that 9/11 was revenge for devades of invasions and general terror, killing thousands of innocents and destroying civilian lives. You're just a pawn for billionaires.
That's what people said when Israel fought back against Hezbollah. Lots of "this will make more terrorists". Turns out this was wrong. The war against Hezbollah ended terrorism. The literal opposite of the predictions people like you were making.
Killing Civilians and journalists, then laughing at them. This is not fight, that you and your compatriots did was nothing but crimes against humanity, with impunity.
> Their intelligence heads are also all gone. What kind of response do you envisage?
It does not mean that their ability to gather intelligence or use it is 100% gone. It most likely means they are a bit in disarray because of their top-down command structure. And maybe it takes a day or two until they put someone in charge.
A tactital victory does not translate to a strategic victory. I'd like to remind you the "Mission Accomplished" fiasco by George W, that was followed by more than 10 years of war and hundreds of thousands dead.
What planet have you been living on the past 25 years? Iran has a population of almost 100 million as well as a sizeable diaspora across the world. If even a small percentage of the population engages in terrorism, that translates into thousands of potential actors. And unlike a state-to-state war, this is the kind of distributed, unpredictable threat that’s much harder to deter or contain.
afaik Iran is a very very different case demographically from Iraq and Afghanistan- in terms of being bigger, more modern and secular. It seems like those are dynamics that make it harder to go to war/stay in war.
Quite the contrary, the religious populace is more likely to fall in line and decide the government knows best; it’s the secular populace that is demanding retaliation and critical of the government for not pursuing nuclearization already.
One data point I heard recently was 80% of Iranians oppose the current regime. That said I've also heard there is wide support for Iran to have a nuclear program. Presumably as a matter of national pride. I would still imagine the secular population to be less inclined to go to war with Israel in general.
The only Iranians I've personally talked to are ones that live in the west. They generally want to have peace with Israel and want to see the regime removed. Again very anecdotally they are still not happy about Israel bombing Iran but if the regime is actually somehow magically removed I don't think attacking Israel would be a high priority for a hypothetical secular or democratic regime.
The fact that someone dislikes their government's current ruling regime doesn't mean they want the US to invade and install a puppet government instead. It's a false dichotomy.
> if the regime is actually somehow magically removed I don't think attacking Israel would be a high priority
Attacking Israel hasn't been a high priority for Iran. When Israel bombed an Iranian consulate, Iran referred it to the security council and waited, but the security council took no action. When Israel carries out an assassination within Iran, Iran did the same thing. Only after the UN refused to do anything to hold Israel to account did Iran retaliate. Then recently Israel launched a massive series of strikes against Iran, assassinating top members of its military and blowing up apartment buildings. It seems clear that the Iranian government didn't want to go to war with Israel, but at a certain point they ran out of options.
Iran has been attacking Israelthrough its proxies. Israel struck the Iranian consulate in a country they're at war with meeting proxies they're at war with. This is indeed an escalation. As a response Iran launched a huge number of ballistic missiles and drones at Israel, which is a major eacalation and direct attack.
> Attacking Israel hasn't been a high priority for Iran.
Really?
It is interesting that you made no mention of Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Gaza, not Houthi in Yemen. All are well-known proxies for Iran to militarily harass Israel. They all receive direct funds and weapons from Iran.
lol. Watch Khameni’s morning broadcast where they have hundreds of delusional adherents shouting “Death to America, Death to Israel” 50 times in a row. I’m sure you’ll come out feeling the same way.
If you're in Iran it makes sense that you would want that if you feel that Israel is a threat. (But it doesn't make it a good idea).
I meant that demographically, if your populace isn't as poor, battle hardened and religious (like Afghanistan) maybe going into a long ground war is less politically feasible?
In Afghanistan they had basically just been fighting a war, where the last war in Iran was 30 years ago?
> I meant that demographically, if your populace isn't as poor, battle hardened and religious (like Afghanistan) maybe going into a long ground war is less politically feasible?
> 95,000 Iranian child soldiers were casualties during the Iran–Iraq War, mostly between the ages of 16 and 17, with a few younger
> The conflict has been compared to World War I: 171 in terms of the tactics used, including large-scale trench warfare with barbed wire stretched across trenches, manned machine gun posts, bayonet charges, human wave attacks across a no man's land, and extensive use of chemical weapons such as sulfur mustard by the Iraqi government against Iranian troops, civilians, and Kurds. The world powers United States and the Soviet Union, together with many Western and Arab countries, provided military, intelligence, economic, and political support for Iraq. On average, Iraq imported about $7 billion in weapons during every year of the war, accounting for fully 12% of global arms sales in the period.
No, but they're the ones making the decisions about fighting such a war. The child soldiers in the 1980s are the politicians, the diplomats, and the generals in the 2020s.
Ah I see what you mean. Yes they don’t have the birth rate (or the suicidal fanaticism) to sustain a decades long attritional war against an occupation like Afghanistan or Yemen can.
But given the size of the existing Iranian population and geography, and the lack of any significantly sized pre-existing anti-government military faction, I’m not sure the US military is large enough to even occupy Iran in the first place, absent a draft.
I think they probably like having an GDP 25x larger than North Korea's. Gets a lot harder to export your products around the world when you're squared off against the US.
They still trade oil with China, that is as much as the rest of the world they need. Of course, getting trade overland is a bit more difficult than by boat which is mostly cut off during a war.
It has a peace treaty with Jordan and Egypt. Also, they signed the Abraham Accords with UAE and Bahrain. As far I know, there is no risk of conflict with Saudi Arabia, Qatar, nor Oman. Who else am I missing?
Half joking: (ignoring Trump's recent "threats") Is the US a threat to Canada or Mexico?
I don't know that much. But I have heard about how in terms of daily outlook a lot of Iranians aren't very religious. Esp. compared to other countries in the region.
On the other hand, the internal Cyber Police HQ got bombed today. If the institutions of internal suppression are sufficiently disrupted, maybe some form of resistance could be form. Who knows.
People keep wishcasting this idea, but just because many/most Iranian people don't like the regime does not mean they want to be bombed by Israel/the USA.
The one thing we’ve learned over and over again since WWII: strategic bombing does not actually achieve any objective except temporarily disrupting logistics. If anything it strengthens the resolve of the people being bombed, giving the target regime more ammunition to carry on.
Did the US ever invade Japanese home islands (Kyushu, Shikoku, Honshu, Hokkaido) during the war? I am pretty sure they got some of Okinawa then dropped two nukes, then Japan surrendered. Do I have the order of events incorrect?
Yes, you're most probably not taking into consideration the Soviets' incursion into Northern Manchuria, which started on August 9th. The last thing the Japanese leadership wanted was to see a big part of their country turn communist.
This is dumb. Strategic bombing did work in WWII, but it was never as effective as its advocates claimed at the time mostly because the bombs rarely hit anything important. They had to drop far more munitions than originally envisioned to actually do critical damage to infrastructure.
You can't really compare WWII dumb bombs dropped from 25,000 feet to modern precision weapons that can hit precisely the weakest point on a target, times thousands of targets, within the span of a few hours or days.
I mean, we literally just watched a massively successful strategic bombing campaign over the last week! Desert Storm was massively successful, Iraqi Freedom (the actual invasion, pre-nationbuilding part) was massively successful, Israel's bombing of Hezbollah was massively successful. I don't know how anyone can argue that strategic bombing with precision munitions isn't successful.
Strategic bombing doesn't work. With the exception of maybe nukes, wars aren't won from the sky and strategic objectives are hard to achieve. The bombing prior to Desert Storm and Iraqi Freedom was operational bombing, its purpose was to flatten resistance so the Army could roll in.
It appears that no matter what, no matter the technology involved (maybe with the exception of nukes), you always need grunts on the ground to hold it.
> What should we expect the political fallout in Iran?
The Iranian regimes favorite enemy just played their part to perfection, so we should expect that to compel the majority of Iranians to rally behind their government in the face of a brutal foreign invasion by not one but BOTH of their standard-bearer arch-nemeses.
Propaganda isn't everything. Iran having a nuclear bomb or not having one does count for more than whether we played our part in the bad guy in their narrative.
Well that pre-supposes that Iran was actively working on acquiring the bomb, that this course of action would stop them from getting the bomb, and that Iran having the bomb is actually a severe issue.
in what universe is that happening? you think the world is safer with even a 10% likliehood of the world's largest terror network getting access to WMD? you're off your rocker.
The US over the past few decades and Russia over the past five years and Israel over the past year have inflicted quite a bit of terror, and they all have nuclear weapons.
None of them would have done it if their victims had them.
Iran's contribution to inflicting misery, death, and indiscriminate destruction on the world is a rounding error in comparison, and its bound by the same formula of MAD as anyone else is.
If it wasn't suicide and I was the big boss, I would get some nuclear subs for my irrelevant South American nation ASAP. The "rules based order" is just wet toilet paper, who's to say that in 50 years we or our neighbors aren't next?
Gringos have always been crazy, but now y'all are getting extra spicy. Qaddafi, Ukraine and now Iran. Get nukes or bust is the name of the game now.
Are you suggesting that states may bomb each other when they don't want to "take the risk" of the other state possibly carrying out a dangerous attack on them in the future?
Plus, the nuclear issue is the excuse, not the reason. Palestine, Lebanon, Syria (+ regime change, sorta), Iraq (+ regime change), Afghanistan and now Iran. All attacked repeatedly and extensively over the past two decades.
so we should expect that to compel the majority of Iranians to rally behind their government in the face of a brutal foreign invasion by not one but BOTH of their standard-bearer arch-nemeses.
Organized how? There’s no internet. I hope Kinko’s is still open because they’re going to need a lot of leaflets to organize anything meaningful.
The point of Iran of enriching U beyond civilian use but not actually going full military grade was leverage. They're the only Shiia super power in the reigion. Nobody likes them.
So what can we expect:
* a ground invasion is pretty much out of the question considering the geography or Iran and its neighboring countries.
* Iran destroys every oil production and transport sites in the region (say good by to your election, Republican Party)
* they could fast produce the bomb and test it underground as a final warning
* OR they fail and resort to more desperate measure like a dirty bomb
* OR they fail and there is some sort of regime change
* Or there is some kind of extended war of attrition and it makes the refugee crisis from the past 20 years seem like it was a mere tourist wave.
In any case, this will accentuate the Qaddafi effect and more nations will follow the North Korea option of nuclear "unauthorized" nuclear dissuasion, which is also the case for Israel by the way.
Talking of which, Israel will become politically radioactive in the world. Its support is already negative in nearly all countries and has dropped significantly in the US such as the evangelicals.
I speak for myself, of course. And the people I know in my community.
Do you believe all evangelicals believe the same thing, and that we want the end of the world to come immediately? Where would you get such a strange idea? I can assure you it is an ignorant thought.
What evangelical church doesn’t believe in the second coming or the significance of the holy land?
Like your pastor, at your evangelical church, preaches that these things are not literal?
Edit: As someone that grew up evangelical, and has had evangelical friends my entire life, it is very strange to see someone casually say that the rejection of biblical inerrancy is an evangelical thing. It stands in stark contrast to the theology that’s fundamental to the faith.
It is literally as odd as seeing someone get mad when another person says that sainthood or the Eucharist are fundamental tenets to Catholicism. I would certainly want them to clarify what exactly their priest was saying to make them feel otherwise.
It is a real religion with a real theology! “Evangelical” isn’t a vibe, it’s a distinct system of worship! Biblical prophecy is very fundamental and a strongly-held belief and value that is taught in every evangelical church I have ever heard of!
There are evangelical movements within American mainline Protestant denominations that broadly hold to amillenialism and do not concern themselves with contemporary speculation regarding eschatology. They receive less attention nationally because they are politically irrelevant.
Amillennialism does not necessarily mean a wholesale rejection of the notion of biblical prophecy. If anything it is largely a disagreement about what the fulfillment of biblical prophecy will look like.
That aside, of course there are always small movements in every faith, but that isn’t usually super meaningful or helpful when talking about the larger group. I’m sure you can find some Catholics that don’t believe in transubstantiation but nobody is out here painting the church as being Eucharist-neutral.
I would not characterize entities like the United Methodist Church or the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America as small movements. Both are evangelical churches in the historical sense and neither has a specific position on contemporary political entities as they relate to Biblical prophecies.
The statement was “they changed their mind and want to postpone the Armageddon now?”
This is not the same as believing in the second coming. It specifically deals with the timing, suggesting all evangelicals think alike and want Armageddon immediately.
That kind of sounds like two pretty different complaints.
I can see the issue with the “changed their mind” comment. Of course armageddon accelerationist evangelicals aren’t going to change their minds, that position comes from deeply held convictions and values that are for many inextricable from their faith. To suggest that they would abandon their enthusiasm for the coming of the savior and the age of messianic peace that he brings with him is kind of dismissive of how seriously evangelicals take the topic of the second coming.
Conversely, the complaint about the enthusiasm about the timing of the return of Christ is kind of a head scratcher for me. You seem to assert that Jesus’ return is fundamental to your beliefs but you personally would prefer that he arrives later. Like it is important and central to your faith but it is also offensively presumptive to assert that anybody would actually want it to happen.
It is kind of like you are simultaneously complaining that he is taking the evangelical position on the second coming both too seriously and not seriously enough.
Are those ten million Evangelicals somehow not part of the mainstream? Like is it ten million outcasts that the majority of evangelicals do not claim? That seems unlikely due to the fact that the count of self-reported Christian Zionists is in the multiple tens of millions in the US.
What I think is going on here is you either do want to speak for all evangelicals, and want to convince people that they all believe what you believe, or you are somehow part of a community in which you haven’t heard of or spoken to nearly any of its members. These are the only two ways to make sense of the “who are you talking about?” question; you are either being willfully untruthful about tens of millions of evangelicals, or you simply, somehow, haven’t heard about tens of millions of evangelicals.
I think when a lot of people here say "evangelicals" they actually mean "dispensational premillennialists"–who are a significant chunk of "evangelicals", but not the whole
But to be fair to the dispensational premillennialists, even many of them would consider the idea that Israeli (or US) military action is somehow "accelerating the end-times" to be distasteful – whether or not they think that action is justified in itself.
You're reacting emotionally to handfuloflight's witty remark and now you're caught in this strait-laced and dignified bit to mask you being offended by the remark and caught making a very poor argument.
Would it be fair for me to assume that you are an Evangelical who doesn't support Israel's genocide under the theological pretenses that other Evangelicals are known for (i.e., the "apocalyptic accelerationism" handfuloflight refers to)?
Would it be fair for me to assume that handfuloflight's remark was solid but fell short in the generalizing way that jokes often lay, because of the possibility that there are Evangelicals who don't support Israel's genocide under the theological pretenses that other Evangelical's are known for because it's a terrible look and indicative of the contemporary fractures that capture the faith at large?
Both of ya'll need to be more forthright with your positions instead of performing this constipated do-si-do along the HN guidelines. Give me a good flame war, get flagged, ring up dang and the new dude, or just downvote each other.
My point is that evangelicals are not a monolith, and not all share the same beliefs.
The originating comment makes no hint that it is referring to anything less than 100%. It’s like saying “Black people think…” or “Women want….”, which invariably leads to some not funny generalization. Suggesting all evangelicals want the world to end immediately is in the same vein, IMHO.
I’m now making the point that generalizing evangelicals as a monolith that can ‘change their mind’ in unison is akin to generalizing people by race, gender, etc. I hope you are in agreement on that one.
Had your first statement been clear in referring to the subset of evangelicals ( instead of using a pronoun that refers back to the whole, evangelicals ), the statement would not have been properly called ignorant. As it stands, it reads as if all evangelicals wish for Armageddon without delay, which is an ignorant statement.
> Suggesting all evangelicals want the world to end immediately is in the same vein, IMHO.
But here's the thing. That wasn't the suggestion. The bunch of links that he gave you don't suggest that.
At least my impression is that there are a considerable amount of Evangelicals that support whatever you think is going on in Israel under theological pretenses. Any notion of timing carried by his initial remark is likely attributed to this.
Maybe I'm misunderstanding the sum of the links handfuloflight shared. Maybe he should have done us the courtesy of spelling it out for us instead, as in, when you asked him:
> Do you believe all evangelicals believe the same thing, and that we want the end of the world to come immediately?
He should've answered the question straight up instead of (what I interpret as) responding to the emotional side of your comment:
> Where would you get such a strange idea? I can assure you it is an ignorant thought.
With an indirect explanation of his point through a bunch of links.
I get it, that's the responsible thing to do when the discourse is trying to present itself as something other than a flamewar, or something like that, which it might as well just be so we can all be more direct and upfront with what we think and feel instead of doing this half-bunned Socratic dialogue.
On the other hand, if someone tries to insult your intelligence in a sophomoric way it makes sense to leave them to their own devices and if they're so smart themselves they can read between the lines on their own.
Anyway, these are non-rhetorical, please-say-yes-or-no questions:
* Would it be fair for me to assume that you are an Evangelical who doesn't support whatever you think is going on in Israel under the theological pretenses that other Evangelicals are known for (i.e., the "apocalyptic accelerationism" handfuloflight refers to)?
* Would it be fair for me to assume that handfuloflight's remark was solid but fell short in the generalizing way that jokes often lay, because of the possibility that there are Evangelicals who don't support whatever you think is going on Israel under the theological pretenses that other Evangelical's are known for, because it has grave moral implications and indicative of the contemporary fractures that capture the faith at large?
If you're offended, then suck it up and be open about your vulnerabilities instead of goading the other party into an exchange that they're better suited than you at carrying on. Maybe they'll show you the empathy you desire, within reason.
No, your first assumption is not a fair one. Like many people, my religious views are not lock step with my political ones and the relationship is not straightforward.
I see handfuloflights remark as an attempted joke, alongside jokes that assume all Black people think alike, all women want the same thing, etc. Like those diverse groups, evangelicals are not a monolith, especially in political matters.
I’m not deeply offended, but I do want to signal that jokes generalizing people are generally not funny.
In a way, I understand why his initial remark was stupid to make.
Especially when you say,
> I’m now making the point that generalizing evangelicals as a monolith that can ‘change their mind’ in unison is akin to generalizing people by race, gender, etc. I hope you are in agreement on that one.
And this is exactly why I raised my initial assumptions to you and why your answer was helpful.
When I asked:
> Would it be fair for me to assume that you are an Evangelical who doesn't support whatever you think is going on in Israel under the theological pretenses that other Evangelicals are known for (i.e., the "apocalyptic accelerationism" handfuloflight refers to)?
What I tried to communicate was that my assumption is that your religious views are not in lock step with your political views in the ways that the generalization in question would suggest.
So when you say:
> Like many people, my religious views are not lock step with my political ones and the relationship is not straightforward.
This makes we want to understand what your views and their greater relationship are.
Additionally, are you upset that he made a generalization and that's all this is about? Or are you upset that he made a generalization that doesn't apply to you and you're trying to explain to us why that isn't the case. =
> I’m not deeply offended, but I do want to signal that jokes generalizing people are generally not funny.
Right. But I don't want to meander toward a discussion on humor, dry wit, et cetera, because although I identified the remark in question as a joke, that's all it is on the surface and it's implications are a lot more serious than that. Which is exactly why I would assume it isn't funny to you. And what makes the remark all the wiser in some ways, although not to you.
What I really want to figure out is what about his remark specifically upset you post-generalization, If according to your own answer to my assumption, you are an Evangelical who supports whatever you think is going on in Israel under the theological pretenses that other Evangelicals are known for.
[Previously I described that as "genocide", but I modified it because I don't to make it sound like I'm trying to manipulate you into agreeing to a part of a premise that you don't agree with. I'm trying to dialogue in as best of faith as I can].
I love handfuloflight. He doesn't know this. But I do. And he does know now. And I think his wit backfired, for the reasons I've already explained.
And as much as your offense constrains you to this odd posture that I feel so compelled to unravel, I think that his wit constrained him to come up with a concept ("apocalyptic accelerationism") that constrains him to now having to argue his way outside of a an ad-hoc generalization.
At this point, the generalization that handfuloflight makes isn't about "accelerating the apocalypse" as much as the influence that Israel's geopolitics have on Evangelical beliefs concerning the apocalypse.
From your side, this is what I want to learn. If you don't want to keep beating this HN thread, my email is in my profile.
And if handfuloflight feels like I've wronged him in anyway, he should let me know however he feels is suitable.
Could I have had added more rigor to make it air tight that my remark was not a generalization? Yes.
Did I? No. Because I thought that was not necessary when the response was in context about a specific group of people already: evangelicals who support Israel. Those who would understand what my remark was referring to, would already know that these evangelicals are a specific set; hence I saw no need to qualify it.
When Rick asked me for clarification twice if I meant that as a generalization, I said in clear terms that I did not.
If someone knows about these tendencies among the evangelicals, they would have the requisite knowledge to know it is not held among all evangelicals.
So if what I said was meant to be a joke, then it was more of an "in joke." But I didn't mean it as a joke, as much as I meant it as, I admit, a reactionary opening to discussing about this specific group's influence on US politics. But now I see that possibility was derailed, because reactionary responses only birth the same.
A quick internet search says 80% of white male evangelicals voted for Trump in 2024. I assume they’re referring to that, since project 2025 is exactly what they accused the evangelicals of supporting.
Still 80 != 100, and not all evangelicals are white males. Alienating the reasonable evangelicals isn’t going to help fix stuff.
C'mon man, you know there are a lot of biblical literalists who are all in on that end times stuff even if you and your social circle don't subscribe to it.
The term you are looking for is dispensationalist. Most evangelicals seem to be dispensationalists who back Israel because of their apocalyptic eschatology, but not all evangelicals hold that belief.
Iran and Libya are very different places both in terms of history and current day.
I would expect Israel to win the political battle as well. The world likes winners and Israel is going to be a winner here. It winning will also enable it to address some of the issues that are a concern. Without Iran backing up Palestinian militants it is going to be easier for Israel to make some concessions that it couldn't otherwise.
You can already see a change of tone in Europe. Especially that Iran is aligned with Russia against Ukraine.
For me the last few days show how militarily-impotent Iran is. Even if they had the nuclear bomb they would not be able to use it against Israel-because right now Iran had no air-defenses and Israel is rumored to have about 100 nuclear warheads.
I do not think Iran has any military options. Because it is not liked the Iranian regime does not have any political options either. So I have no idea what will happen-which makes the current situation so interesting to watch.
All this talk of Iran getting a nuke to hit Israel... doesn't the Iranian government know that it would instantly be destroyed the moment they used a nuclear weapon of any kind?
> doesn't the Iranian government know that it would instantly be destroyed the moment they used a nuclear weapon of any kind?
YES. They Absolutely know this. The point of an Iranian nuke is deterrence, and the reason Israel finds that intolerable is that Israeli policy is to maintain the ability to unilaterally raise the stakes of a conflict past any of its neighbors.
That just isn't true and assumes Western type of logic.
Iran doesn't just call death to America and death to Israel in every rally. They mean it. When they publish photos of their facilities I was shocked to see the US flag, then I understood it's on the floor. They walk on the Israeli and US flag every day in these places as an insult. As a westerner I find this pretty hilarious... But they are serious.
For reference I will point you to the Huttis... The main damage they do to Israel is waking up Israelis due to a missile alarm. As a result they lose hundreds of lives in bombings and crucial resources. That doesn't deter them. Hell, they don't even like the Palestinians since they are Sunni... It's a matter of being part of a Jihad.
Notice that this isn't true for all Muslims. The extremists are a death cult who believe that dying in a Jihad will send all of them to heaven. If they get a bomb it is very possible they won't care about the consequences in the same way a "normal" country cares about them.
No, the western kind of logic here is to assume the people we’ve taken as enemies are irrational and fanatical caricatures, instead of normal-ass humans who are attempting to maintain agency over their lives and responding to the actions of those around them.
I think if you look at the actions of Iran over the last 20 years and attempt to categorize it as one of either a geopolitical foe attempting to maintain some degree of control over their local surroundings OR an implacable suicidal death cult, one of those theories is going to fit the facts a whole lot better than the other, as evidenced by the fact that the Iranian regime is still in existence, despite all but daily attempts by both the US and Israel to bait them into attempting “suicide by global cop.”
I'm not saying they're irrational. I'm saying that the basis for their rationality is different to ours. A rational westerner would rarely commit a suicide bombing in a civilian setting (it happens too). But it's common in these circles.
Another example would be the Islamic Jihad attacks prior to 2023. The Islamic Jihad is an organization in Gaza that is similar in purpose to Hamas but distinct. They fired missiles into Israel which led to an Israeli attack. Hamas very explicitly stood down and sent through normal channels that it isn't interested in escalation. This created in Israel a false sense of security which led to the "success" of the Oct 7th attacks. When someone says they want to kill you and aren't afraid of death, it is prudent to believe them.
Neither one of us can enter the minds of these people, but they had plenty of chances to stand down and compromise. They chose not to do that. I wish Trump hadn't quit the nuclear deal because I would have liked to know how that would have turned out. But this is the situation we have right now...
Iran does build up global terrorism and has continued to do that for decades. Their path to nuclear weapons would mean they could continue doing that and no one would be able to do anything even if they never actually use the bomb.
Again, I’d encourage you to stop thinking you’re dealing with people fundamentally different than you, and start considering why they’re acting the way they’re acting. You’ve referenced Palestinian fighters a couple times - I’d suggest the lens that these are fundamentally a different kind of people is probably going to tell you less about the current situation and how to change it for the better than the other lens, which is that these people are fundamentally human like you, and if you’re seeing extreme behavior, there’s probably extreme circumstances driving it.
To be clear, I’m not saying this to justify extreme or violent behavior, but to consistently act surprised when people act “irrationally” is to suggest either your definition of rational is wrong or your understanding of the circumstances are wrong. As the old joke goes, you can’t blame the mouse when the experiment fails.
> Again, I’d encourage you to stop thinking you’re dealing with people fundamentally different than you, and start considering why they’re acting the way they’re acting.
So you're saying that there are motivations that would make you perform suicide bombings?
There are incentives by which you would sacrifice your children?
The vast majority of Iranians and Palestinians are good people. Same as everyone. The leadership and nutcases are vastly different than normal people.
I have friends in Gaza and the west bank. They are victims of these nutcases, this sort of mentality is tolerance of intolerance. They are victims of Hamas as the Iranian people are victims of their leadership.
> but to consistently act surprised when people act “irrationally” is to suggest either your definition of rational is wrong or your understanding of the circumstances are wrong
It isn't that they're irrational. Their decisions don't match western rationality which is based on different standards.
If you think that the death of your child will send him on a fast track to heaven that can seriously impact the rational choices you make down the line. It doesn't mean you can't speak calmly or even pretend to have a different set of objectives.
Their definition of reality leads them to a very different set of incentives and decisions. I understand exactly why the leadership wants nuclear weapons. They're paranoid and they aren't wrong in their paranoia, but that goes both ways. If Israel had listened to voices like this in the past then Saddam Husein and Assad would have had nuclear weapons. Luckily they don't and now we don't have to know what the Iranian leadership would have done. That's a good thing for everyone, especially for the Iranian people in the long term.
Assuming you're from the states, imagine the Mexican president calling death to America constantly, claiming it's their religious prerogative to destroy America and launch multiple terrorist cells against America... Then imagine them developing nuclear weapons... The USA would be justifiably paranoid.
Not sure why are you very adamant in defending Israel's govt inhuman actions in all your postings? How do you sleep at night?
Not condoning suicide attack but early zionists in Israel are all the same attacking civilians by the same actions, and after more than hundreds years the autrocities still continue until today albeit in different inhuman forms [1].
Worst now they're using indiscriminate military bombings against Palestinian people mostly women and children that has no proper protection from state military [2]. From your logic and claims, zionist and Israel military don't match your so called western rationality and seems to be based on different standards.
Perhaps all these inhuman actions based on the fact that they wrongly believe that they're God's chosen people destined for the Heavens and will not be touched by the Hell fire for whatever autrocities they've committed? [3].
> Not sure why are you very adamant in defending Israel's govt inhuman actions in all your postings? How do you sleep at night?
I don't sleep great with all the constant rocket alarms because we're under fire and I have to take my kids to the safe room.
I'm not defending the Israeli government and very much didn't vote for them. I do explain specific policies that do make sense and the logic behind them.
> Not condoning suicide attack but early zionists in Israel are all the same attacking civilians by the same actions,
Nope. First off the use of the word "zionist" as a derogatory term is problematic. It just means "patriot" or the desire to live in Israel.
There were early attacks before the formation of Israel that can be broadly described as terrorist attacks. The difference in the severity and violence is staggering. E.g. the worst example is the hotel bombing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_David_Hotel_bombing
But here are some huge differences:
* They called in advance to warn about the bomb - this was ignored due to human error
* They were hunted down by moderate Israelis
> and after more than hundreds years the autrocities still continue until today albeit in different inhuman forms
Here's a different take. Palestinians spent the past 120 years constantly fighting the Jews. Losing and making things worse for themselves. Had they accepted the Jews right to exist by their side we could have all prospered. Israel gave them multiple chances to end this. It offered them a state twice. It even left Gaza and cleared the settlements. Instead the people voted in Hamas and proceeded to take the billions given to them in order to build rockets and a war machine against Israel.
I'm not saying that Israel is innocent here. But as a country Israel did pretty much anything one could expect under such a situation.
> Worst now they're using indiscriminate military bombings against Palestinian people mostly women and children
Again. Not true and relies on false numbers/narratives. Bombing is very discriminate and it's based on intelligence. It's coordinated with legal oversight. There are failures for sure, but Israel is doing more to avoid civilian deaths than any country in history.
> From your logic and claims, zionist and Israel military don't match your so called western rationality and seems to be based on different standards.
Nope. It's the fact that you believe a false narrative propagated by Hamas that is the problem. That gives them an incentive to keep sacrificing Palestinian civilians to erode support for Israel under the false hope that it will cause trigger the countries demise.
> Perhaps all these inhuman actions based on the fact that they wrongly believe that they're God's chosen people destined for the Heavens and will not be touched by the Hell fire for whatever autrocities they've committed?.
I suggest looking at the demographics of Israel. Israel has one of the highest ratios of secular/atheists. It is a deeply liberal state. Tel Aviv is more gay than San Francisco. My kids go to school with Muslim kids who are also Israeli citizens and 20% of the population.
Hell, if I watched the nonsense John Oliver says I'd probably also hate Israel. The fact is, it's a very different country from the narrative some people are driving. The supposed facts you chose are deeply cherry picked.
But the people you're supposedly defending would stone a gay person or a woman for the crime of being raped. Have been behind multiple terrorist attacks against civilians in busses, malls, coffee shops and embassies. Have killed Americans and held them hostage. These are bad people.
Worse, their goal isn't independence. Their goal is to kill 10M Israelis. From the river to the sea means kill all Israelis.
>I don't sleep great with all the constant rocket alarms because we're under fire and I have to take my kids to the safe room.
If you are direct descendants of the original Jews that have been living in the area for many centuries, I really hope that you and your family are safe from all the troubles.
But if you're of the new recent Jewish immigrants to the promised land of Israel, I've really bad news for you. Personally I'd migrate elsewhere than accidently caught in the perpetual crossfire [1],[2],[3].
> Israel has one of the highest ratios of secular/atheists
I'm not sure whether you're naive or pretending to be naive, but don't be fool to think that the Israel - Palestinian conflict is a nationalist or secular agenda, it's not and it's never was. It's highly religious matter and as you probably know the area surrounding Jerusalem is the holy land site for the three world's major religions namely Jewish, Christian and Islam, and the Jerusalem is mentioned specifically inside the Old Testament, New Testament and Quran, all originally in Semite based languages.
The root causes are religious and the solutions are also going to be religious based solutions, and those who think otherwise is either naive or in-denial, or both. There were already many many wars fought in the name of religions in Jerusalem, from David vs Goliath to subsequent Jewish wars with Persian and Roman, several hundreds years of Roman/Byzantine - Persian wars, several hundreds years of Crusades - Muslim wars, and now the Israel - Palestinian hundred years wars [1],[2],[3].
Fun facts, in the Quran Jewish people were mostly referred as Bani Israel (son of Israel or Yaakob/Jacob) not Yahudi as normally referred in the Arabic language, and both Cristians and Jewish together were referred as the People of the Books. The term 'Israel' is being used in the Quran more than thousands years ago, ironically it's being adopted by current Israel govt.
Another fun facts, most of the US Presidents (45) are descendants of the Eleanor of Aquitaine [4]. She's the Queen of France and later after her divorce, Queen of England. She's the mother of King Richard the Lionheart, the infamous Crusades King l, and also mother of King John Plantagenet. She's also the major sponsor and player of early Crusades [5].
> If you are direct descendants of the original Jews that have been living in the area for many centuries, I really hope that you and your family are safe from all the troubles.
That is an very problematic take. Some would might consider it racist.
Judia was here. That's a historic fact. Somehow you decided that the timeline for this being the "native country of a given people" is exactly in the right timeline to exclude the Jews. Like our right for the country has somehow elapsed because we experienced a genocide and didn't come back in time to reclaim our lost country...
Not that it matters but both me and my spouse were born in Israel as was the vast majority of this country. The claim that we're westerners is ludicrous and part of the typical anti-Israel propaganda.
My parents immigrated. My father escaped Morocco, my spouses father escaped Yemen. They both lost their homes as did 40% of the Jews who came to Israel from the east/south. Our mother's sides had vast families in Europe. Again a pretty common story...
> But if you're of the new recent Jewish immigrants to the promised land of Israel, I've really bad news for you. Personally I'd migrate elsewhere than accidently caught in the perpetual crossfire.
This sort of rhetoric is even more problematic. Many Jews are looking at people who say that and feel that Israel is our only home. This promotes Israeli nationalism and immigration to Israel.
Every time I'm in Europe and see the "pro-Palestine" demonstrators I'm thankful that I live in Israel. We might get rockets occasionally, but I feel safer walking the streets even if we have suicide bombers and shootings. At least we're together.
> I'm not sure whether you're naive or pretending to be naive, but don't be fool to think that the Israel - Palestinian conflict is a nationalist or secular agenda, it's not and it's never was.
I've been here for the past 50 years. I've had youth activities with Palestinian youths in the 80s and 90s. I know this very well.
I didn't hint in any waythat it's a secular conflict. It's 100% a religious conflict.
I said that Israel is mostly secular and had only one religious prime minister (for one year) and he had a Muslim party in his cabinet which was one of the most diverse in history.
That means that the religious problem that is at the root of the conflict is more to blame on the deeply religious element... Which is not Israel.
> It's highly religious matter and as you probably know the area surrounding Jerusalem is the holy land site for the three world's major religions namely Jewish, Christian and Islam, and the Jerusalem is mentioned specifically inside the Old Testament, New Testament and Quran, all originally in Semite based languages.
Are you seriously mansplaining my home country and its history to me?
> The term Israel was used in the Quran more than thousands it's being adopted by current Israel govt.
It's from the old testament, sons of Israel. I read the books.
So, first, noting from your other comments here that you're not getting to armchair this from the safety of abroad like the rest of us - I sincerely hope you and your family stay safe and can know peace. I'm putting a lot of words into what may seem like a defense of either Iran or its proxies - believe me when I say I'm aiming to explain, not justify. I'm a pacifist and a humanist, and my genuine hope is that people everywhere can live in peace and safety. I'll also say that if I say things like "Israel does X" or something, I'm not ascribing the actions or morals of the state to you personally - I live in America, I know the difference between the actions of a government and the opinions of its people (unless you've got Bibi's private number, in which case - get dialing, damn).
> So you're saying that there are motivations that would make you perform suicide bombings? There are incentives by which you would sacrifice your children? <...> If you think that the death of your child will send him on a fast track to heaven that can seriously impact the rational choices you make down the line.
If your people were under threat, would you sacrifice yourself to save them? If your children died fighting to protect your country (genuinely protect, not in the "US invades Iraq to protect our god-given right to drive giant trucks" sense), would you be proud of them? Do you think they'd go to heaven?
This is why I keep pressing on this: under what circumstances would you do the same things that they're doing? Start from the premise that you did, and work backwards - what would it take? Why would you do that? If you continue to act like these people are weird alterna-humans, you're going to keep getting surprised by their actions. Start from the premise that they're like you or broadly like the people you know, work your way back to why the hell they're doing the things that keep surprising you, and then figure out what's going to make them stop.
(As a separate note, the concept of martyrdom doesn't start in Islam - there's a rich history of it across all the Abrahamic religions, and all of them presume the martyr's getting the fast track to paradise.)
I'd say one other thing, which is that Hamas is a militant group which considers themselves under existential siege and behaves accordingly - Iran is a different entity under different constraints whose people (and leaders) make different choices. Words are words - I'd suspect we've both heard plenty of revolting things from our countrymen that we brush off as idle talk that the other side would take as a dire threat.
And, for what it's worth, I understand the paranoia. I don't think it's unjustified. I get why Israel does not want Iran to get a nuclear bomb. But I don't think the actions of Israel or the US here are making that outcome less likely, and I think they're taking those actions due to the kind of misreading of Iran that we're discussing here.
To flip this on its head: if you were Iran, what on earth would convince you not to build a bomb now?
> I sincerely hope you and your family stay safe and can know peace.
Thanks and appreciated.
> my genuine hope is that people everywhere can live in peace and safety.
Same. Unfortunately, bad people do exist and pacifism is a luxury we can't afford.
> unless you've got Bibi's private number, in which case - get dialing, damn
We demonstrate a lot. Some in-front of his house. He's an a*hole megalomaniac that just doesn't care about anything. But I guess you have your own version of that...
> If your people were under threat, would you sacrifice yourself to save them?
Self sacrifice is very different to walking into a bus in the middle of Tel Aviv where you have children and other Muslims and blowing yourself up. Notice that people did it during the Oslo accord period, not for the purpose of "protecting their family". They did it to stop the peace process from happening and were successful.
The goal of Hamas is the exact opposite of what you describe. Their goal is to prevent peace with Israel. Oct 7th happened because they were afraid Israel would make a deal with Saudi Arabia which would lead to a Palestinian state. They don't want that, they want the whole country.
I'll also say that if I say things like "Israel does X" or something, I'm not ascribing the actions or morals of the state to you personally - I live in America, I know the difference between the actions of a government and the opinions of its people (unless you've got Bibi's private number, in which case - get dialing, damn).
> Do you think they'd go to heaven?
They believe that if a Palestinian child dies during the conflict they go to heaven. That essentially gives them a license to "sacrifice" children of other Palestinians as part of their holy war.
> This is why I keep pressing on this: under what circumstances would you do the same things that they're doing?
No. I'd compromise and build a country. That is what the majority of Palestinians want. That is why the Palestinian authority never joined Hamas's war against Israel.
> (As a separate note, the concept of martyrdom doesn't start in Islam - there's a rich history of it across all the Abrahamic religions, and all of them presume the martyr's getting the fast track to paradise.)
Sure. It's in the old testament I know. תמות נפשי עם פלישתים
Roughly translated: "My sole will die with the philistines" which is fitting. But we grew up as did the Christians who were also pretty crazy. The same is true for most Muslims, as I said... My kids study in school with Muslims. They are fine people. Hamas is a different breed.
> I'd say one other thing, which is that Hamas is a militant group which considers themselves under existential siege and behaves accordingly
That isn't true. They had the freedom to do whatever they wanted and made an explicit choice. Israel literally paid them billions in a failed attempt to make them more moderate.
They continue to make that choice by refusing the release of the 53 Israeli hostages which would end the war.
> But I guess you have your own version of that...
Indeed we do :-)
> That is why the Palestinian authority never joined Hamas's war against Israel.
The PA's reward for this is the settlers.
I think a basic problem for Israel here is that some relatively small percent of the population wants genocide, and they're the ones who've been driving the cart for the last decade or so.
What, to you, is the realistic road to a two-state solution?
With regards to the hostages - to an outside eye, Israel's bombing campaign doesn't really seem to indicate they're overly worried about the health and safety of those 53 remaining hostages.
The extreme-right fascists in the government are indeed using Oct 7th as an excuse to make the west-bank worse. I hope we can kick them out of office in the next election but the Iran thing shuffles the deck a bit and reduced some of the hate against Bibi.
> I think a basic problem for Israel here is that some relatively small percent of the population wants genocide, and they're the ones who've been driving the cart for the last decade or so.
I don't think they want Genocide. They look at the Palestinian extremists and say that they will never change. No matter what we try they will always try to kill us. So if it's us or them it should be us.
I get what they are saying. The fact that Palestinians voted for Hamas shocked us all back in the day. The problem is that Palestinians don't have stable leadership that we can talk to and trust. We also have pretty poor leaders since Rabin.
> What, to you, is the realistic road to a two-state solution?
I used to think there is no other option. That we might take a detour and get there eventually after all the pain since there's no other realistic option. Now I'm afraid that the Israeli extreme right might rise to power. The anti-Israel sentiment is actually fueling it which is pretty horrifying.
I hope calm voices will take the Saudi deal which can truly revolutionize the middle east. But right now I think we need to calm down. We've been in nonstop war since 2023 and it puts you in a fight or flight mode. People are picking up extreme stances as a result.
> With regards to the hostages - to an outside eye, Israel's bombing campaign doesn't really seem to indicate they're overly worried about the health and safety of those 53 remaining hostages.
Bibi doesn't want them back and Hamas don't want to release them. He knows that if they will be back he will have to end the war and then might lose his government. Now with the Iran campaign it might finally give him the incentive to close on a reasonable deal.
> I don't think they want Genocide. They look at the Palestinian extremists and say that they will never change. No matter what we try they will always try to kill us. So if it's us or them it should be us.
This is a bit of semantics, though - "if it's us or them it should be us" is advocating genocide (I'm not saying _you're_ advocating genocide, to be clear). I think this is one of the problems for Israeli society, especially post-Oct 7 - the only group with a coherent picture of what they want and how to get there is the extreme right, and they're pushing for genocide, no matter how they phrase or qualify it. The semantics and the nuance of the conversation inside Israeli society isn't making it to the outside world, but the actions of the right wing hardliners are - that's what the rest of the world is seeing and responding to (and, for what it's worth, I'd suspect there's similar conversations happening inside of Palestine, too).
> The fact that Palestinians voted for Hamas shocked us all back in the day.
There's a couple sides to this - one was that Fatah was viewed as broadly corrupt and ineffective, and Hamas was the opposition party. I understand why Israel saw that as a Palestinian vote for Israeli genocide, but there's a credible claim that it was closer to, say, a Turkish vote for Erdogan or an Indian vote for Modi.
The history of the Hamas government, especially in the early days, is an interesting one - the group made real signs that they were willing to de-escalate and move towards peace. There's a long history of the moment here: https://www.bostonreview.net/articles/cobban-breakout-hamas-... - but long story short, neither Israel nor America were willing to take a chance, and, again, right-wingers in Israel took actions that closed that road off.
> The problem is that Palestinians don't have stable leadership that we can talk to and trust.
Yeah, this is definitely a credible complaint from the Israeli side - probably the last person who could've conceivably been that person was Yasser Arafat, and even the people who worked closely to negotiate with him noted that he was a militant to his dying days (which were 20 years ago).
Regarding the road to peace, I think this is something that Israel needs to invest in if there's hope of a genuine two-state solution - there needs to be efforts to build up Palestinian civil society and they need to show there's a credible reason for negotiating with Israel and genuine benefits to come from it, which I don't think Palestinians broadly believe right now.
> I hope calm voices will take the Saudi deal which can truly revolutionize the middle east. But right now I think we need to calm down. We've been in nonstop war since 2023 and it puts you in a fight or flight mode. People are picking up extreme stances as a result.
Yeah, this is going to be really hard to unwind - especially since I don't know what kind of committed partner for peace you're going to have on the other side of the Gaza wall going forward. The amount of despair visited on those people isn't creating fertile ground for the thawing of relations for the next generation or so.
Netanyahu has carved his name into the history of Israel at this point - I sincerely hope y'all can find a way forward towards peace.
> This is a bit of semantics, though - "if it's us or them it should be us" is advocating genocide
I don't think it is. When your family and life is threatened you make different choices. This is the definition of war not genocide which is deliberate.
> I think this is one of the problems for Israeli society, especially post-Oct 7 - the only group with a coherent picture of what they want and how to get there is the extreme right
I tend to agree. Israeli liberalism is perceived as detached "do gooders" who live in a bubble.
> and they're pushing for genocide
That's in the very edge and they're mostly pushing to ethnic cleansing which means "relocating" the Palestinians to Jordan/Egypt. That is obviously stupid and unworkable. It won't solve any problem and will make things worse.
> The semantics and the nuance of the conversation inside Israeli society isn't making it to the outside world, but the actions of the right wing hardliners are
Yep. It's pretty horrific and when it gets reported in local media the commenters gang up on them being "anti-Israel" and "self hating Jews".
Recently an Arab village was hit by an Iranian rocket and women died as a result of that. Some people online celebrated that disaster which was indeed horrific. Luckily, we're still not there. The overwhelming consensus attacked those a*holes. But 20-30 years ago it wouldn't have been as bad.
This goes both ways. People in Palestinian villages watch the rockets landing in Israel and celebrate that too. Unfortunately, people in the right encourage that level of hate and use it as a tool.
> one was that Fatah was viewed as broadly corrupt and ineffective
Yes. I know. They also didn't get an absolute majority etc. I get that.
But for many Israelis it was a watershed moment, they had a choice and they chose wrong.
> The history of the Hamas government, especially in the early days, is an interesting one - the group made real signs that they were willing to de-escalate and move towards peace.
Israel was attacked by Islamic Jihad a bit earlier and Hamas very explicitly stood down. They wanted to facilitate a sense within Israel that they are interested in calming things down. Due to that Israel ignored intelligence that showed the preparation for October 7th.
> Regarding the road to peace, I think this is something that Israel needs to invest in if there's hope of a genuine two-state solution
Hopefully... I tend to be an optimist although it is challenging sometimes.
>The main damage they do to Israel is waking up Israelis due to a missile alarm. As a result they lose hundreds of lives in bombings and crucial resources. That doesn't deter them
Ansar Allah has managed to largely shut down the port of Eilat, one of only 3 major ports in Israel, and Israel relies on maritime imports to sustain itself.
They aren't detered by Israeli bombs because they've been bombed by the Saudis for over a decade in their ongoing civil war.
But all of this talk about nuclear bombs and jihad is hypothetical. Meanwhile only one country in the MidEast has an ACTUAL undeclared nuclear arsenal, and it's the country that has occupied territory in multiple neighboring countries while conducting an ethnic cleansing that has cost the lives of tens of thousands of women and children.
As a Westerner, I'd much rather we deal with the Rogue State perpetrators of actual crimes rather than the hypothetical criminals.
> Ansar Allah has managed to largely shut down the port of Eilat, one of only 3 major ports in Israel, and Israel relies on maritime imports to sustain itself.
That was mostly due to the blockade, it doesn't justify the rockets. That mostly damages a private company and doesn't cost Israel much in the grand scheme of things considering Israel has 2 additional large ports.
> They aren't detered by Israeli bombs because they've been bombed by the Saudis for over a decade in their ongoing civil war.
That's exactly what I'm saying. Death of their own people doesn't fit into their equation.
> But all of this talk about nuclear bombs and jihad is hypothetical. Meanwhile only one country in the MidEast has an ACTUAL undeclared nuclear arsenal, and it's the country that has occupied territory in multiple neighboring countries while conducting an ethnic cleansing that has cost the lives of tens of thousands of women and children.
That mixes a lot of different things and is mostly false.
Unlike them Israel never called for an annihilation of a different state. It called for a regime change. It never made a threat related to nukes other than one idiotic member of parliament who said something stupid.
Israeli demonstrators never called for death to Iran and even now the targets in Iran focus on the people/infrastructure behind the nuclear program while Iran targeted many civilian areas.
The claim of ethnic cleansing is also false and shows a deep misunderstanding of the situation in Gaza. There are Israelis who are justifiably warning that Israel is headed in that direction, but it physically hasn't happened yet. There are many civilian casualties and that is indeed horrible and tragic, but blaming Israel for it is contributing to the death toll.
If you're such a believer in Islamic logic then please explain why Hamas is still holding 53 Israeli hostages?
That is Israels main excuse for the war, without them the war will be over. What is the logic behind that?
Hamas sees Israel as a western nation. It believes that without western support Israel will collapse. In that sense the western outrage over the violence in Gaza is fuel to Hamas, it gives them incentive to keep the violence going and encourages them to use children. It encourages them to hoard the aid sent by the west and produce a picture of starvation amongst their own people.
The Israeli right-wing also benefits from this. They know that if the west abandons support for Israel it will allow them to do whatever they want. They believe that no amount of compromise will ever satisfy Palestinian extremists and they encourage taking harder action against them to fuel a war.
These sorts of stances and misinformation in the west is contributing to more violence and Palestinian death.
>The claim of ethnic cleansing is also false and shows a deep misunderstanding of the situation in Gaza. There are Israelis who are justifiably warning that Israel is headed in that direction, but it physically hasn't happened yet. There are many civilian casualties and that is indeed horrible and tragic, but blaming Israel for it is contributing to the death toll.
Oh wow. A floor of 50,000 dead, every city razed, barely any functioning infrastructure and a blockage on medical and food assistance.
Israel didn't start this war. Hamas started it and is keeping it going by refusing to release the 53 civilian hostages it is holding. They are hiding under the cities, under the hospitals and all over the region.
I think the Israeli right-wing took that Hamas bait and used that to commit far more violence than it should have. Hamas is using it to prop western outrage which it believes will bring down Israel. The Israeli right-wing is happy about western outrage because they believe it will force Israel into isolation and let them do whatever they want.
Is Israel conducting an ethnic cleansing? See my clarification below, but also YES.
>The claim of ethnic cleansing is also false and shows a deep misunderstanding of the situation in Gaza.
Well if we want to get technical, Israel is conducting a genocide, as ethnic cleansing is not precisely defined. Any rational human being can pull up the definition of genocide on the UN website and conclude for themselves by assessing each criteria, particularly #1 and #3. It's not complicated. https://www.un.org/en/genocide-prevention/definition
We see the stream of images of dead, maimed, and starving children. We have the first-hand accounts of western aid workers and doctors trying to save lives in Gaza, reporting anomalies that even veteran conflict doctors haven't seen before (such as disproportionate head and torso small arms wounds on children). And perhaps more importantly, we see and hear the things Israeli politicians say about Palestinians.
> There are many civilian casualties and that is indeed horrible and tragic, but blaming Israel for it is contributing to the death toll.
Why are you using passive language? Why are there civilian casualties? They don't just magically appear on their own. There would be no civilian casualties if Israel wasn't dropping bombs on peoples' homes. There would be no civilian casualties if the IDF wasn't ambushing convoys of first responders.
> If you're such a believer in Islamic logic then please explain why Hamas is still holding 53 Israeli hostages?
I will not allow you to deflect from the core issue at hand by pivoting the conversation to Hamas. The point is to compare and assess the two principle STATE ACTORS, one of which sits on a nuclear arsenal while massacring civilians, and one of which is on the receiving end of "preemptive strikes" while not possessing equivalent weapons.
> Hamas sees Israel as a western nation. It believes that without western support Israel will collapse.
Hamas isn't wrong, which is probably why Israel spends such a massive amount of treasure and effort on propaganda directed at western audiences. The Israeli air force would have been grounded months ago if not for a blank check to get fuel and ordnance from the US. Israel's jets drink more aviation fuel than Israel can ever refine itself.
> It encourages them to hoard the aid sent by the west and produce a picture of starvation amongst their own people.
Hamas aren't the ones intercepting aid shipments in international waters. Israel is.
Well... It isn't. It's a big port. We're doing perfectly fine and the shops are full.
> Does Israel have an undeclared nuclear arsenal? YES.
Probably. But assuming it does, did it ever threaten anyone with it even when it was under attack? Nope.
> Does Israel occupy territory in multiple neighboring countries? YES (in both Syria and Lebanon
Lebanon shot rockets into Israel for a year at an average of 10 rockets per day targeting civilian population killing children etc. They dug huge tunnels in an attempt to do a full out invasion/massacre on the north border. Israel responded "gently" at first. Gave them a year to back down.
Israel is there to protect the family members of Israeli Druzi minorities and make sure they aren't murdered by the new regime.
> Well if we want to get technical, Israel is conducting a genocide, as ethnic cleansing is not precisely defined.
> 1. Killing members of the group; - Israel doesn't satisfy that criteria. There is a war which Israel didn't start. It's targeting Hamas which is in a specific region still holding hostages. People don't die because they are Palestinians.
Yes, civilian casualties happen a lot and it's tragic. But that isn't genocide by even the most lax definition of that.
> 3. Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
Again, war isn't that.
But let me help you with the arguments. First there's the ethnic cleansing which essentially means displacement. Initially when Palestinians were cleared from the north there were fears that they won't be able to return home. Some right-wing extremists even advocated for that. However, they have since returned.
The second claim is about starvation which I agree is terrible. Unfortunately, it's not as clear cut. Israel did plenty of stupid/evil stuff in that regard (cutting water, electricity and holding aid trucks). These were indeed bad. But they got restored.
The logic they had was that this is stolen by Hamas and then resold on the black market to fund their operation. This is also 100% true. That's why Israel is trying a different way around Hamas to bring down the organization for good.
That's horrible, but so are the other guys.
> > There are many civilian casualties and that is indeed horrible and tragic, but blaming Israel for it is contributing to the death toll.
>
> Why are you using passive language?
Because I never killed anyone and always voted for peace. I didn't do this, Hamas did it. I feel terrible for Palestinians. I can (and do) demonstrate against my government, I hope they will get a deal to release the hostages and end this.
A Palestinian who tries to do the same thing in Gaza will find himself in a shallow grave and the people who will put him there are his own countrymen.
Ideally, if Israel had a decent government this war should have been about freeing Palestinians from the clutches of Hamas. But with the current government it's unfortunately just terrible.
> Why are there civilian casualties?
There always are in war.
But mostly because of you. Hamas believe that without western support Israel will collapse. So they are making the war as brutal as possible for their own populace in the hope of de-legitimizing Israel. The Israeli extreme right-wing is actually for it, they think that if western support is no longer an option then no one will hold them back from forcing Palestinians out of Gaza entirely.
> They don't just magically appear on their own.
In a war zone people don't carry flashy signs indicating their civilian status.
> There would be no civilian casualties if Israel wasn't dropping bombs on peoples' homes.
> There would be no civilian casualties if the IDF wasn't ambushing convoys of first responders.
There were several cases of Hamas using Ambulances to drive around and move troops. There were cases of mistaken identity by the IDF. It's horrible and that's exactly what Hamas wants.
> I will not allow you to deflect from the core issue at hand by pivoting the conversation to Hamas.
Why is that deflection?
You're pretending that Israel is there shooting civilians while ignoring the reason it's there to begin with.
> The point is to compare and assess the two principle STATE ACTORS, one of which sits on a nuclear arsenal while massacring civilians,
Again. Not murdering civilians, you have no concept of what war is.
> and one of which is on the receiving end of "preemptive strikes" while not possessing equivalent weapons.
They didn't receive a "preemptive strikes". They were the people behind the rise of Hezbolla in Lebanon who attacked Israel repeatedly. They funded the Huttis who attacked the Saudis and shipping. They blew up embassies and were behind countless terrorist action. They are the trigger, training and a major driver for the October 7th attacks.
Once they gain nuclear weapons it would be too late and WWIII will start. This strike was essential to prevent that.
> > Hamas sees Israel as a western nation. It believes that without western support Israel will collapse.
>
> Hamas isn't wrong, which is probably why Israel spends such a massive amount of treasure and effort on propaganda directed at western audiences.
Israel is one of the worlds largest manufacturers of weapons. Why?
Because we were under embargo before and it helped us build up our economy and technology. When we first got American aircrafts we had to strip that junk down and rebuild it. Thanks to us Americas aircrafts are now far better. Missile defense systems actually work.
An embargo will hurt Israel a lot. But would probably be far worse to the Palestinians.
> The Israeli air force would have been grounded months ago if not for a blank check to get fuel and ordnance from the US. Israel's jets drink more aviation fuel than Israel can ever refine itself.
If Israel can fly fewer missions it would just have to make every bombing count.
> Hamas aren't the ones intercepting aid shipments in international waters. Israel is.
The amount of aid in these flotillas is minuscule. They are for show only. Aid comes through trucks. Gaza has no port large enough for a ship, Biden tried to build one and failed.
These flotillas try to present the Israeli blockade as illegal. It isn't. Hamas is a threat and blockades are legal. Starvation tactics are illegal, but whether Israel is at fault here is debatable.
The problem I have with people like yourself is that you have a lot of criticism but no actual solutions. It's really easy to blame Israel, but what would you have Israel do exactly?
Go nicely and ask Hamas kindly to return the hostages? Stop firing rockets?
You say don't kill civilians, which school of urban warfare did you study in?
Give Palestinians a state: Israel tried it twice, arguably three times (leaving Gaza).
Leave Gaza: tried that before. That's how we got here.
Plus anyone in the DoD with an elevated clearance can read US intel info about various aspects of the Israeli WMD program in surprising detail, which I won't elaborate on here.
> Again. Not murdering civilians, you have no concept of what war is.
Twenty years of military service, and I've worked with Fallujah veterans. Even we in the notoriously heavy-handed Marine Corps somehow manage to not annihilate as many families as the IDF does in Gaza. Don't think we have a systemic history of using human shields either: https://apnews.com/article/israel-palestinians-hamas-war-arm...
> They are the trigger, training and a major driver for the October 7th attacks.
> In a war zone people don't carry flashy signs indicating their civilian status.
A responsible military would establish Rules of Engagement that assumes people are civilians, and only opens fire when there are CLEAR indications of a threat (visual confirmation of weapons, incoming fire of clear origin, etc...). It helps keep you from shooting your own hostages because you mistook them for unarmed Palestinians, for example.
> You say don't kill civilians, which school of urban warfare did you study in?
I've been an infantryman in the US National Guard and an officer in the United States Marine Corps. I know what it's like to be expected to clear rooms while only having Reservist-level training (like most of the mobilized IDF ground forces). We were fortunate because we had a bunch of prior Active Duty NCOs (with both Army and Marine combat vets) who were experienced and understood restraint. Working as an Aviation C2 officer, I understand the killchain of air support missions, which is why I'm highly critical of how much ordnance is landing on the heads of entire families. The Israeli air force has a reputation for competence, so the only rational explanation is malevolence.
> If Israel can fly fewer missions it would just have to make every bombing count.
The implication in this statement is that you aren't making every sortie count now....which is coherent with the conclusion that you are bombing the population as punishment, not judiciously targeting actual military threats.
> The amount of aid in these flotillas is minuscule. They are for show only.
It's not the quantity of aid that is significant, it is the purpose, process, and optics of aid delivery. Members of the international community are attempting to relieve human suffering, and you are boarding their ships, shooting them, and attacking them with drones. That is objectively evil.
> The problem I have with people like yourself is that you have a lot of criticism but no actual solutions.
We have a lot of criticism because you are killing women and children using OUR taxpayer dollars, protected by OUR diplomatic influence with the UN/ICC/etc. We've presented solutions: a one-state solution with complete emancipation for the Palestinian population. The problem is the Jewish demographic refuses to accept this, because population trends will soon lead to Jews becoming a minority, which the Jewish population, traumatized by a history of persecution, refuses to accept.
Plan B would be to lift the Gaza Blockade and allow foreign investment to build up Gaza's transport links and offshore natural gas resources, so the Palestinians have sovereign control of their economic development. Also completely halt West Bank settlement expansion. Combine this with expanded UN peacekeeping patrols (maybe some sort of joint patrols, with one European Christian and one Pakistani/Indonesia/etc. Muslim) to try to keep violence to a minimum until both sides get past their collective traumas.
>Leave Gaza: tried that before. That's how we got here.
You removed your ground troops, but you destroyed the Gaza airport before you left (why?), destroyed the foundations of the Gaza seaport as well (why?), and as you said insist on maintaining a maritime blockade. The population has no transportation links to establish meaningful trade relationships and economic prosperity. The young men who make up the backbone of Hamas foot soldiers circa 2023 were probably all the children you traumatized in ~2006. That's how you got here.
> 1. Killing members of the group; - Israel doesn't satisfy that criteria.
> I didn't do this, Hamas did it.
I'm honestly glad that you engage online. I think it is important for as many eyes as possible to see into the thought processes and state of mind of the apparently moderate Israeli demographic. Because you guys come across as total fucking psychopaths, with NO sense of introspection whatsoever. I work with Marines who have fought house-to-house in Iraq and Afghanistan and they are more well-adjusted and humane that what I hear from the average Israeli internet commenter, even on a fairly "enlightened" site such as HN (this place isn't a dumpster fire like Reddit or 4Chan).
> We've presented solutions: a one-state solution with complete emancipation for the Palestinian population.
That is the one thing no one wants and is literally the worst idea ever!
Israel has a large Muslim population, but it's a secular state with an ethnically Jewish majority. It is not a colonialist state since it was formed by migration and war, not by a colonial empire.
Lebanon OTOH was formed by the colonial empires as a "fantasy land" based on their lack of understanding in the region. The result was decades of civil war and a failed state due to the diversity of the populace. Syria was another colonial state that slid into a similar situation more recently. Without the Assad family killing all opponents Syria is a damn mess.
A single state is a ridiculous colonial level thinking. We differ too much on a cultural level.
> The problem is the Jewish demographic refuses to accept this, because population trends will soon lead to Jews becoming a minority, which the Jewish population, traumatized by a history of persecution, refuses to accept.
Palestinians don't want it either. You're wrong about the population trends as the fastest growing population in Israel is Hasidic Jews.
> Plan B would be to lift the Gaza Blockade and allow foreign investment to build up Gaza's transport links and offshore natural gas resources
The "give them money for peace" is the exact strategy we tried for the past few decades. Literally gave them suitcases of cash. Hamas leadership hold billions which they steal from their own people, living it up in Qatar.
Before Oct 7th I was working with guys from Gaza. Lots of tech companies in Israel (including Nvidia) were working with people from there. There are great people there. But as long as Hamas exists this sort of strategy just won't work. They will pretend to be onboard and will use that to arm up.
You can't remove a blockade of someone who actively says they want to kill you.
> Combine this with expanded UN peacekeeping patrols (maybe some sort of joint patrols, with one European Christian and one Pakistani/Indonesia/etc. Muslim) to try to keep violence to a minimum until both sides get past their collective traumas.
You mean the UN troops that stood in Lebanon for a year while Hezbolla fired rockets into Israel constantly?
You mean the UN troops who had Hezbolla tunnels dug under their bases and firing posts right in-front of their bases?
Or do you mean the UN troops who held Hamas weapon caches in their offices. Who taught schoolchildren that committing suicide bombings against Israelis will send them to heaven?
Those UN troops?
Sure. The UN is a great body for most countries on earth. Except Israel. The UN came up with more anti-Israel resolutions than all other countries combined. That includes Russia, Saudis, Sudan, NK etc. Israel is apparently worse than all of them. So no, we won't get a fair deal from the UN.
> You removed your ground troops, but you destroyed the Gaza airport before you left (why?), destroyed the foundations of the Gaza seaport as well (why?),
Imagine October 7th with proper weapons and tanks. That's why. Israel left unilaterally due to US pressure. There was no peace deal. The fact is that had Israel not done these things everything would have been so much worse.
> The population has no transportation links to establish meaningful trade relationships and economic prosperity.
That is not true. In the past you could get whatever you wanted in Gaza it just had to go through Israel for security reasons. They still made rockets out of construction pipes.
The problem is that you're confusing two things, the normal people in Gaza who just want to live... For them economic prosperity is great. And the psychos from Hamas who won't be swayed by anything.
You think that people get radicalized by harsh times, that's true. But no amount of economic prosperity will sway Hamas. That is a deep misunderstanding of who they are and their mindset. Bin Laden had all the money in the world and chose to do the terrible things he did. That is not an isolated case. Sinwar was in Israeli prison for murdering other Palestinians (had a guy bury his brother alive with a spoon), he had cancer and Israel cured him then released him.
Still he led the October 7th attacks as he saw that as a weakness. These guys are not "normal". They are a fanatic death cult. The problem is that the people hurt the most by them are the Palestinian people. The only hope the Palestinian people have is if Hamas is destroyed as completely and thoroughly as possible.
> The young men who make up the backbone of Hamas foot soldiers circa 2023 were probably all the children you traumatized in ~2006. That's how you got here.
100% and we're making more of them right now arguably.
You incorrectly assume though that if we stop that will reverse the situation. It will not. It will just happen again and will be FAR worse. The only way out of this is through to the other side. Notice that I'm not in favor of that anymore, I've already resigned myself to the fact that Hamas won't be defeated in this round and that we will probably have a followup clash with Hamas. But next time it will be far more deadly.
> I work with Marines who have fought house-to-house in Iraq and Afghanistan and they are more well-adjusted and humane that what I hear from the average Israeli internet commenter, even on a fairly "enlightened" site such as HN (this place isn't a dumpster fire like Reddit or 4Chan).
Separate Internet comments from the general populace and the soldiers in the field. But I also don't think it's fair to compare our situation to US soldiers.
It's a small country. To put it in perspective the scale of death on Oct 7th is comparable to a 9/11 that killed more than 40k people. We all know someone who died on Oct 7th. Everyone. We all know someone hurt by terrorism. Everyone. It's very personal when you keep running with your kids to shelters and when their earliest memories are of missiles flying overhead.
We all served in the army. Whenever a soldier dies it's the death of a child or a friend. My kids are too young for Army conscription but it's the thing that keeps me up at night more than anything. I don't want them to be a part of an endless war, if there's a risk to soldiers we get the fire first ask later mentality.
Israelis see this as "we tried to do the right thing". We tried to give them a country, we tried peace and signed peace accords with multiple countries (we gave back territory 3x the size of Israel for peace).
But then we get hate online and we take it very personally. Especially when Jews parrot Hamas narrative. That hurts and pushes a lot of Israelis further to the right.
We're also still under deep national trauma that we can't heal. 52 Israelis are still held in Gaza and we feel the absence of every hostage deeply. My spouse would sit with the families of hostages every week until she just broke down mentally. There's a Hebrew saying: Don't judge a man in sorrow.
Our entire nation is in trauma and isn't acting rationally. When you had a similar national trauma you demolished two middle eastern countries and contributed to the current situation.
I split my reply to two parts since it's too long.
> Twenty years of military service, and I've worked with Fallujah veterans. Even we in the notoriously heavy-handed Marine Corps somehow manage to not annihilate as many families as the IDF does in Gaza. Don't think we have a systemic history of using human shields either: https://apnews.com/article/israel-palestinians-hamas-war-arm...
That's interesting. It's also missing a few very important details.
Israel was never this violent prior to Oct 7th. Things escalated and Israel wasn't the one who started the escalation.
Unlike America who can just break the middle east and leave, Israel has to stay. Your guys destroyed Afghanistan and then blamed the Afghani people for "not fighting for themselves". Israel tried to fight this gently and morally, and a lot of Israelis see that as a failure.
The main problem here is that there's widespread Muslim delusion surrounding Israel. In early 2024 a missile hit my home (not much happened thanks to Iron Dome) I posted a photo on LinkedIn and got confronted by a Moroccan living in Europe. We had a lively albeit heated discussion similar to the one I'm having with you.
He was sure that all Israelis will "run back to Europe" and kind of fumbled when he found out my ancestry is Moroccan too (he was pretty sure they were great to Jews, which admittedly they weren't that bad). But he was adamant that within 5 years Israel will be gone. Cease to exist. I asked him if it's legitimate to wish for the death of me and my family which is something he avoided.
There's widespread delusion within the Arab world that Israel will topple. Even supposedly intelligent western Muslims are influenced by this delusion. They have an image of the country that doesn't represent it in any way.
Add to that the justified Israeli paranoia e.g. in the 1950's the UK drafted plans to bomb Israeli airbases and leave Israel without defense against its enemies. If Israel were wiped out in any time during its existence the Jews would end up like the Armenians. Fed. We're seeing this in the states right now where the hate towards Israel is one of the few bipartisan issues. We saw America abandon allies in the past.
Sure. How many Israelis were killed by Hamas and similar terrorist groups?
Prior to Oct 7th Israel tried to be more surgical when targeting terrorists. That worked. The PLO was a deadly organization that murdered children, hijacked planes and killed athletes at the Olympics. Israel was deeply violent chasing them to Lebanon and Tunis. That broke them. They finally understood that Israel will never surrender and took up the low bar of recognizing its right to exist/stop terrorism.
That led to the one positive thing in Palestinian history: The Oslo accords.
But Hamas couldn't have that and sabotaged that with help from the extreme Israeli right-wing.
This can't be solved by peaceful means, as much as I want that. In order to have peace we need to also stop the people who are trying actively to sabotage the peace and we also need to squash that delusion that Israel could collapse.
> Working as an Aviation C2 officer, I understand the killchain of air support missions, which is why I'm highly critical of how much ordnance is landing on the heads of entire families. The Israeli air force has a reputation for competence, so the only rational explanation is malevolence.
The assumption your making is about civilian death ratios published by Hamas controlled sources. The fact that other organizations put their stamp of approval on these sources doesn't make them true. Israel doesn't publish numbers since it's impossible to get them accurately, but they estimate a ratio of 1 to 1 in terms of civilian casualties which is far better than what any US campaign ever achieved.
> The implication in this statement is that you aren't making every sortie count now....which is coherent with the conclusion that you are bombing the population as punishment, not judiciously targeting actual military threats.
Israel is using more accurate smaller bombs right now. Are some decisions made by soldiers biased and vengeful, sure. I mean Abu Ghraib didn't appear out of a void and Israel still is a country of laws, it prosecutes war crimes. Yes, the current right-wing government is terrible in that regard and tries to sabotage due process/military standards. But the army is still a separate branch with its own chain of command and judicial oversight. Every airstrike is reviewed, by oversight and requires justification.
I can see why the level of destruction is terrible, but I also understand the necessity. Imagine as a soldier walking into a neighborhood with snipers in every building. The army chose the brute force approach in many cases to reduce casualties.
> It's not the quantity of aid that is significant, it is the purpose, process, and optics of aid delivery.
I agree that holding the food trucks was terrible. No excuse, even if it helps Hamas that was a terrible call. The floatila nonsense was just constructed to make Israel look bad on social media. It was stupid to begin with.
> Members of the international community are attempting to relieve human suffering
They are not. They are virtue signaling which is a very different thing. Ultimately they are only increasing hostility and making it harder for everyone.
Greta Thunberg is the perfect example of a person who celebrated Oct 7th right after it happened. The way we see it is that no one gives a fck about dead Israelis. The problem is that the moment she put herself as the person who's for "bringing aid" she made the whole thing toxic. That means that when we say we want aid to go in we're on "her side". She damaged the cause rather than helped in the name of social media "likes".
> and you are boarding their ships, shooting them, and attacking them with drones.
You're mixing several different floatila's. The first one had armed personnel trying to break a legal blockade. They shot Israeli soldiers and found out. That was legitimate.
The drone thing tried to prevent a similar occurrence. No one was hurt and the message was received.
The latest floatilla was just stupid social media idiots. They got due process and a flight back home. Those who want their day in court will get due process like everyone.
It looks bad, but it's people trying to make Israel look bad. Not an objectively bad or evil thing.
> We have a lot of criticism because you are killing women and children
Not actually true. The ratio of women/children is faked.
> using OUR taxpayer dollars, protected by OUR diplomatic influence with the UN/ICC/etc.
That's partially true. Yes, Israel does get US aid which is given in the form of "store credit". It provides a lot in return for the financial/political aid. In fact the whole situation in Gaza is because of you guys...
In 2005 Bush pressured Israel to leave Gaza and clear the settlements. It did just that because of your political pressure. The results of that terrible decision are in front of us right now. For the past two decades Israel didn't re-invade fully despite constant escalation and rockets. Again, the reason is pressure from the USA not to do anything too harsh.
Removing US aid and international support will be a terrible problem to Israel. That is literally what Hamas wants. The problem is that this would imply that the leash is truly off. It would send Israel to the extreme right and would probably create a "shock and awe" scenario for Palestinians.
I hope the US aid stays but I'm pretty sure it will be gone within a decade. I hope we can have peace before that happens.
86 year old fanatical Islamists don't necessarily operate on the same principles of game theory as the rest of us. Mutual self-destruction is not something they fear to the same degree.
And yet, for twenty goddamn years now, they’ve been negotiating with us and have _not_ built a nuclear weapon, despite repeated threats and provocations by the US. Iran is not an irrational actor. They are a state under siege by a superpower and its violent regional partners, and have acted in the fashion one would expect from a state in that position.
I mean, you're also forgetting the fact that Israel sends assassins after their top nuclear scientists every year or two, and cyberattacks every few years, and "mysterious accidents".
It's a bit like saying "but Y2K never happened, they must have been exaggerating" or "but nobody talks about the Ozone hole or acid rain anymore so it must have never been a real problem".
How much plausible deniability would Iran have if they gave a nuke to Hezbollah who fired it over the border at Tel Aviv?
"That was Hezbollah, not us!"
You might say using a proxy would be a hopelessly transparent ploy, but Hezbollah has been firing other Iranian supplied weapons at Israel for years and yet many people swear up and down that Iran has "never attacked Israel". So apparently the proxy ploy does work on a lot of people.
This is a statement that's fairly ignorant of Iran's long running military strategy. The military situation is much more complex and nuanced that you're laying it out.
One of Iran's strengths, for example, has always been lots of cheap missiles. People often point out how few of the missiles actually hit their targets in Israel, but that's missing the point: every intercepted missile costs orders of magnitude more to intercept than it does to create and launch. The Iron Dome is very effective, but is both incredibly expensive to run and, most importantly, loses efficacy over time as it's resources are depleted.
Nobody knows exactly how close Iran is to a nuclear weapon, but most analysts that I've read that the time to actually being able to launch a weapon is in terms of weeks. So part of Iran's strategy will always been draw attacks until it is ready to potentially retaliate.
On top of that, this is not a video game. Iran does not want to use a nuclear missile, nobody really does since it like ends, at least regionally, in everyone losing. Part of the balance of the conflict in the middle East in Iran is precisely not putting them in a potion where the use of nuclear weapons suddenly becomes rational. This is exactly why we in America have been nervous about open aggression towards Iran. Not because we might not win, but because it backs them into a corner where nuclear options suddenly become more rational.
> Because it is not liked the Iranian regime does not have any political options either.
Just one tiny example of how this is false: because of US sanctions China gets a enormous (estimated at around 15%) amount of their oil, very cheaply, from Iran. A serious threat to Iran then becomes a serious threat to Chinese oil supplies.
The issue is extremely complicated and nuanced, so any takes that are binary are missing a lot of information. By striking Iran we are pushing this this issue into places we haven't really explored yet, with consequences nobody truly knows.
One of the main reasons for the Israeli attack was the mounting stockpile of missiles. Even the small fraction of conventional missiles that hit Israel created a great deal of damage. They were on route to create enough missiles and launchpads that would make Israels air defense irrelevant. The equivalent of two nuclear bombs.
their IRBMs are rather unpleasant. and one of reasons for "all of it", it's that they decided to build 10k of them in order to have capacity to launch 1k at once
They're not going to escalate. They're already getting their ass handed to them by Israel and the last thing they want is to throw down with their other enemies in the region right now. You are correct that there will be no ground invasion, so there is no existential threat to the government. This means they have no incentive to do something stupid that will make anyone change their mind on that invasion.
It's a country of 100M people. They're not just gonna be have their "ass handed to them", just like it didn't happen in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq1, Iraq2, Yemen and Afghanistan. Countries do adapt to bombings, especially when there's a superpower nearby.
Also if they "were just about to have the bomb" then they could develop it and use it after. So there is the conflicting position that they are both insane to use it and but both sane to not escalate the conflict. This is where most pro-war arguments fail the basic logic test in the nuclear bomb era.
"just like it didn't happen in korea, vietnam, iraq1, iraq2, yemen and afghanistan."
that's a fancy retelling of history you got there. MILLIONs died in those wars and less than 100K US troops died. Out of those wars, iraq 1 led to iraq defeat and withdrawal from kuwait. iraq 2 had saddam dragged through the streets and a regime change within 3 weeks, yemen was counterterrorism - there's no regime to topple, in afghanistan the taliban regime was removed for 20 years and only once the troops were withdrawn were they able to crawl back.
Possibly, but the cost that regime being over is likely similar to that US paid with war in Afghanistan and Iraq, which, and I am being very, very charitable, was too much blood for too little gain.
Forcing Iran into submission is not going be as easy as it was in Iraq.
One of the key reasons behind why Iraq fell so quickly is that Saddam made all the wrong moves leading up the invasion.
By that point, he had alienated every single potential ally (including Iran) - and virtually all states in the region were supportive of the invasion, regardless of their positions in public.
Not to mention that the invasion of Iraq was ultimately a failure anyways..
Iran has been escalating reasonably, and is clearly acting as a sovereign state should. You can project all you want, but Saddam was playing another ballgame.
Unfortunately, international law means nothing these days, so it might have been a mistake to not establish deterrence sooner.
Regardless, Iran is not going to be as easy to topple as some people might think.
I'm not he one adrift from reality. Europe has always been helping out a lot, more than the US, because Ukraine has been politically aligned with the EU for well over a decade. It's the US that has been scaling back its involvement.
There isn't going to be political fallout. The Iranian regime has systemically wiped out all dissent over the last decade and a half. The remaining population is all either pro-Khamenei or too powerless to speak out. If anything an unprovoked war will give the country stronger reason to distrust the west and rally behind their leader.
Iran doesn’t quite have the capability to shutdown the shipping lanes in the PG. At least not in any way thats sustainable for a long period. A few days at best. A USN CG would put a stop to it in a hurry.
Let's not confuse capability with intention and consequences Straits of Hormuz is barely 40km wide and the Persian gulf is very shallow. Blocking it very feasible for nations bordering it who are willing to take the consequences. We don't know if they are and if so, unblocking it also has consequences in terms of requiring committing to prolonges military occupation. Ultimately, it appears the military industrial complex has won by replacing defense $$ in Afghanistan & Ukraine with yet another conflict.
The Houthi threat was in and around the red sea. Iran’s naval reach is limited to with whatever it is they call a “Navy” in the Gulf of Oman. Almost on other side of the Arabian peninsula. Also the Houthis got pummeled once the U.S showed up. The U.S didn’t even continue a sustained campaign to wipe them out. Something it is more than capable of doing with just a single carrier group. That’s not even counting the Saudis getting involved.
The first infliction point would be to see whether the regime intends to strike at US forces or do they intend to climb down. IMHO, that would be suicidal, but it doesn't mean they won't do it.
The second point is when they decide to end the war (they aren't doing well), and all the accusations start flying. Then there'll be political fallout.
Short term I expect the people of Iran to unite around their hatred for the aggressor, making one of the proclaimed goals of "regime change" impossible.
No, if you're familiar with Iranian history it should probably make you wary of interventionism with the goal of regime change. Create a power vacuum and you get the government you deserve, not the one you ask for.
Say, have you ever wondered how exactly Iran came to hate America so much?
> If you're uncomfortable, you should ask your congressAIPACSlave to nuke the entire planet. This way you can make sure there's nobody on this planet left to hate America's rape-culture-based Foreign Policy.
Referring to Congress as AIPAC slaves is textbook anti-Semitic rhetoric; it relies on the old conspiracy theory that Jews secretly control governments. Smuggling in bigotry like this undermines any chance at actual discussion we might have.
Israel is committing a holocaust of Gaza right now, the time for good faith discussion ended a while ago. Accusing anti-zionists of Anti-semetism for pointing out that the sky is blue as a way to protect Israel from scrutiny is manuscript double anti-semetism. One should be ashamed of oneself for trafficking in genocide whitewashing by using the real issue of antisemetism almost as a human shield.
Spare me. Someone concerned about "double anti-semitism" wouldn't be making allusions to the "Jews control the government via AIPAC" trope, and in the same breath accuse that government of fostering a "rape-culture-based foreign policy."
What do idol worshipping zionist apostates have to do with Jews/Judaism? It's like claiming criticising ISIS sleeper cells is wholly islamophobic. Nazis do not represent all Christians, it's not christophobic to be anti nazi. It's not islamophobic to be anti ISIS. It's not antisemetic to be antizionist. It's not
Nobody is falling for this thought-ending rhetorical black hole trap anymore. Stop projecting your antisementism onto others. It's embarrassing.
It's my suspicion that most of the 60% enriched material was moved prior to the attack(Edit: which recent statements from Iran seem to support), and now undergoing enrichment to 90% in a facility the US doesn't know about. Enrichment gets easier as the percentage goes up.
I expect (ok, I WORRY) a major US city to have a nuke set off in it by Iran within the next 5 years.
It didn't have to be this way, we had a working treaty and inspections regime until Trump pulled us out of it.
Decades of effort to prohibit nuclear proliferation have just gone down the toilet.
EDIT: Ya'll are right, the idea of them doing a test and going public makes a lot more sense.
> I expect a major US city to have a nuke set off in it by Iran within the next 5 years.
This absolutely will not happen. Iran will make a nuke, and they will test it very publicly, and then the political math in the Middle East changes overnight. The point of a nuclear bomb for a country like Iran (or Pakistan, or North Korea) is deterrence, not attack - if Iran set off a nuke in an American city, the regime would not survive, and it’s possible the country would not.
Edit: to put that differently, the only way an Iranian bomb goes off in an American city is if an American bomb goes off in an Iranian city.
“ The point of a nuclear bomb for a country like Iran (or Pakistan, or North Korea) is deterrence”
I hope this is true, but Iran has a hard time convincing people because their theocratic elements are suicidal from a secular standpoint. Eg their religious messaging is confounding.
You are lumping together three very different countries into a western mindset of deterrence.
While Pakistan is Muslim they are not the same as Iran in any way. The current rulers of Iran do not operate by western logic and would be consider a "holy death" as a direct path to heaven.
Iranian populace isn't behind that, the people themselves are reasonably secular and aren't behind that. However, the leadership is dangerous and you should not assume they would use western logic.
If Iran is going to behave logically with a nuke, then why is it so terrible for them to have one? If they are illogical, then why would they NOT choose to wipe out Israel and blow up a couple major US cities?
The arguments I hear about Iran are almost completely contradictory.
I really don't understand why the US didn't continue their talks with Iran. They were clearly open to joining a non-proliferation treaty at the time. They also have a religious law against developing nukes in addition to their other tentative agreements and cooperation with IAEA.
I don't expect Iran to use any nukes that they develop though. Having nukes puts a country in a special diplomatic class. Using them is almost never beneficial. The status quo risks for nuclear programs is stronger sovereignty, which would drastically shift the regional balance of power and possibly tip the scales on a broad international level.
I think Iran’s mercenaries eventually blew up the entire diplomatic strategy. It turns out they should have stop funding entities that shoot missiles at population centers so often. It was a reckless strategy that failed.
Exactly, they should be rational just like our secular politicians.
"As a Christian growing up in Sunday school, I was taught from the Bible, ‘Those who bless Israel will be blessed, and those who curse Israel will be cursed.’ And from my perspective, I’d rather be on the blessing side of things.”
- Ted Cruz, a U.S. senator
"There is a reason the first time I shook Netanyahu's hand, I didn't wash it until I could touch the heads of my children."
- Randy Fine, a U.S. congressman
And of course, there's the President of the United States who's known to be completely rational.
Iran has shown itself a rational actor time and time again by not escalating against continued provocation by Israel and the US, knowing that to do so would be to enter a conflict it can’t win. That’s not the behavior of an irrational actor who’s willing to fight whatever the cost, even total annihilation (which would be what happened if Iran nuked the US/Israel).
They may be religious fanatics, but they’re not idiots.
It’s not a justification, obviously. But it is a (partial) explanation. Israel wanted to keep sweeping the Palestinian issue under the rug, and Hamas and its sponsors were not going to allow that.
I don't think this makes much sense, due to the scale of the two parties: Iran somehow figuring out how to get a nuke onto a US city would invite complete and total annihilation of Iran -- and the world would largely support it. Iran knows this.
Nukes among peers aren't there to be used. They are there to immobilize and freeze a layer of conflict.
> I expect (ok, I WORRY) a major US city to have a nuke set off in it by Iran within the next 5 years.
It's strange how this "Sum of All Fears" scenario is dismissed out of hand, or doesn't even occur, to the tankie-types on HN and reddit rooting for the Ayatollah to cross the nuclear finish line--the same Supreme Leader who, three days ago, permitted large protests in Tehran where crowds chanted "Death to America" and burned US flags.
Even weirder is that many (most?) of them are urban types who live, or aspire to live, in big cities like NYC or LA so they can enjoy the large LGBTQ communities, the ethnic restaurants, the bars serving craft IPAs, and the reduced commute times to and from protests. Hasan Piker, a prominent tankiefluencer, lives in LA, for example. So you would think they especially would have misgivings about Iran's enrichment program, even if they don't support intervention against it. And yet most of them dismiss any concern over it, or even outright state Iran should have nuclear weapons.
as a sum of all fears, you should also be worrying much more that texas will drop a nuke in LA, and so the texas government needs to be wiped off the map, all texans included.
local terror attacks are already a constant and accepted danger
