SpaceCowboy @ SpaceCowboy @lemmy.ca

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2 yr. ago

The intent seems pretty clear to me: leave Israel so Israel ceases to exist.

I never claimed the propaganda was a nothing burger, I claimed it’s directed at the Israeli state, not Israelis or Jews themselves.

“Either you must choose ‘gradual death’ in hellish life in shelters or save your lives from the 24-hour missile rain and flee as soon as possible from the lands usurped by your ancestors, so that you may survive.”

I think the use of the word "ancestors" makes it clear they're talking to a people of a specific ancestry ie. an ethnicity. They are telling Jews to leave or they will be killed. This is ethnic cleansing. And lets not be so naive that Iran wants Arab-Israelis to leave. They stated that they want ethnic cleansing.

Even if Israel were completely secular, there would still be opposition, because Muslim extremists don’t care what religion occupies the Holy Land, as long as it’s not Muslim, it is the same.

So the original plan 1948 plan of Jerusalem being internationally controlled and open to all religions isn't acceptable? Well they are extremists, but they extremists like this can't have any military power because they're just going to do endless war since they'll never get what they want.

The power proper solution is regime change, and giving the people there a reason to support their government isn’t the way to achieve that.

If the infrastructure helps keep the regime in power (like systems to monitor people's activities) then why would want it to remain in place? If Iran can't see a gathering of people on security cameras, that helps a resistance movement, doesn't it?

The JCPOA was a step in the right direction, a D we should’ve followed it up with trade deals. IMO, the best way to fight against extremism is through prosperity and trade, so we should be making very attractive deals with countries in exchange for not having or eliminating nuclear weapons (prosperity in exchange for peace). Unfortunately, that’s impossible with Trump in power, and I doubt Iran’s leadership is interested after the US broke the trade deal.

It was never going to be a fast thing. This regime took diplomats hostage which is the biggest no-no in all of diplomatic relations. It's hard to improve things through diplomacy when you can't trust a nation enough to have diplomats set foot in their country. Also they'd need to stop their "death to Israel, death to America" stuff. Kinda hard to trust a country that does that. Sure trade increases prosperity, but it also increases access to technology which helps their military. You'd look pretty stupid if you started trade with a country calling for your death, then they used that to improve their military to attack you. Also they're an oppressive so there's ethical issue with enriching an oppressive regime. Yeah we enrich the Saudis who are oppressive, but only because we're stupidly dependent on their oil and don't have any choice. When we have a choice should we enrich an oppressive regime hoping trade will make it less oppressive? Doesn't seem like trade with China made their regime less oppressive.

It's not a given that trade and diplomacy could be improved with this regime, a lot of that was up to them.

Anyway that's all moot now.

Do you deny that Iran is committing genocide. Then you're the genocide denialist!

Or maybe we shouldn't weaponize the word genocide and discuss serious issues like adults instead of playing word games?

Marion, you knew when you met me that I came from the mind of George Lucas. It's not my fault I'm a little fucked up!

They're groomed from a young age by the manosphere to be losers that can't get laid, so they'll continuously buy self-help books from the manosphere.

They still vote though. And this all happens because to a teenager, the manosphere are the cool guys making fun of the whiny nerds.

Marion, this is a movie made in the 1980s and set in the 1930s, what the hell are you even talking about?

I think it’s reasonable to hate someone who is actively trying to kill you, your loved ones, or trying to ruin your life.

Hatred is a failing, not something that should empathized with or rationalized. We know there's situations that will make people hate, but it's like someone abused as a child becoming an abuser as a parent. We know it happens but it's not a thing where we should empathize with the abuser and rationalize their actions so it seems reasonable or legitimate. Sure I try to understand hatred, but in a similar way as I try to understand mental illness. Something that needs treatment, not something that should be spread out of a weird sense of empathy.

There is intent behind the propaganda, but it’s not to genocide Israelis or Jews, it’s to destroy the Israeli state.

"Either you must choose 'gradual death' in hellish life in shelters or save your lives from the 24-hour missile rain and flee as soon as possible from the lands usurped by your ancestors, so that you may survive." https://iranwire.com/en/news/142321-irgc-says-it-fired-2000-kilometer-range-missiles-at-israel/

I guess more propaganda and not intent? This is part of Operation "True Promise" They've been promising to wipe Israel off the map... so more propaganda.

Iran keeps promising to ethnic cleansing of Jews, and every thing they say seems to be "seriously, me mean it, it's we're making are promises come true now."

And even if you're sure that you trust them to be lying, what about the potential for someone that grew up with this propaganda and is a true believer to someday take power?

Hamas was in power in Gaza for a much shorter period of time and the indoctrinated young men to be capable of doing some extremely horrific things in that time. I'm sorry but the propaganda isn't a nothing burger whether you believe it or not. Some people will believe it and may do horrible things in the future.

Agreed, and I think the same is true for Iran as well. They’re a regional and global pariah, and a nuclear weapon would do a lot to protect the regime. I don’t think Iran should ever have a nuclear weapon, but I also don’t think Israel should be allowed to just destroy their infrastructure.

The regime will immediately start rebuilding their nuclear program if they remain in power. The infrastructure helps keep the regime in power.

I had an Iranian coworker, and they said Iran just needs a strong push and it’ll splinter, since there are many powerful groups that dislike the current regime. I hope that’s what happens with this offensive by Israel

Well prepare yourself, the Ayatollah will use violence to try to remain in power, and that could be a really violent conflict. The Syrian civil war was horrific, over half a million people killed, torture dungeons, mass killings, really terrible things. Hopefully a potential Iranian civil war wouldn't be so bloody, and maybe with air support for a rebel group it'll be more like the Libyan civil war. But that's still tens of thousands dead and Libya is still in a mess today.

I hope that’s what happens with this offensive by Israel, but that doesn’t mean I support Israel’s attack here. I think there are other ways to weaken Iran, and I’d prefer to go that route instead of killing innocents.

I think all of the other ways have been tried, it's not just Israel that would welcome a regime change in Iran. I don't think military action should be a thing anyone should be supporting (it's not a sports team) but sometimes military action is necessary. It would've been better if the JCPOA not been cancelled by Trump and the Ayatollah just decided to quit being supreme leader and let Iran decide things democratically. But that's not the world we live in.

It's cool, take your time in answering the questions. Critical thinking can be difficult for those that haven't had a lot of practice with it. There's no time limit to answer the questions, and the third question is rhetorical, so don't worry about that one.

It?

Who's paying you to dehumanize people?

Thanks! Have read Jonathan Swift's "A Modest Proposal"?

The trick is to figure out a way that forces people to actually think about an issue. People hate thinking!

But it's really important for people to think about things. In case you haven't noticed, a lot of things in the world are going in a bad way and too many people are on autopilot just quoting bullshit from the internet. Not good to let algorithms think for you.

When you look at Gaza does that indicate that violent resistance is super successful?

You've been reading too much stochastic terrorism stuff.

I’m tempted to call out the origin of the United States, which was violent resistance to an oppressive regime.

You mean that time some slave masters wrote some pretty words about freedom and equality and absolutely nothing changed for the slaves they owned?

I have some ancestors that had to flee political persecution during the American Revolution. When they said they tarred and feathered the "traitors" do you buy that bullshit? The slave masters that founded the United States eliminated political dissent using public torture. Oppressors always label any dissenters to be traitors. Donald Trump does this too.

You were indoctrinated into believing a fairy tale about the foundation of your country so you'd worship "founding father" the same way they worship "big brother" in 1984. The American Revolution changed who had power, it didn't change anything about the lives of regular people, and certainly didn't improve anything for the slaves.

I'm from Canada and the founding principle of my country was "we have to work together or the Americans will invade us." We have more rights than Americans Do you want to guess how many revolutions and civil wars we had to get to where we are?

Most people couldn't vote in America for much of it's history. Tell me which revolution resulted in women having the right to vote in America? What revolution ended segregation?

Stochastic terrorists have told you a narrative that violence always works and non-violence always fails. History isn't on your side unless you read it from the point of view of wealthy land owning slave masters. If your goal is to increase rights and freedoms, non-violence is more effective. If your goal is to get power so you can oppress people then sure, I guess violence works for that.

You are aware Hamas tortures people to death if they speak out against them, right? I guess you just want to always side with the oppressive assholes of history that use violence to gain power.

I'm wondering if the leftists will actually believe this. They seem to latch onto every other meme that presents geopolitics as some overly simplistic pattern.

I think some on the right believes a major world war happens every 70 years (or something like that) and the pattern totally explains wars for centuries! Well as long you forget WWI and the Napoleonic wars happened....

Also I don't think "intervention" means what you think it means.

To paraphrase Jon Lovett, they have "back of the classroom energy" while the left has "front of the classroom energy".

"Teacher teacher, he said something some people might find offensive! Send him to the principal's office"

"Thanks for narcing me out, r****d"

"Teacher teacher, he just said the r-word!"

The left just isn't equipped to deal with the manosphere. Everything the left does just makes the manosphere seem even more cool to the kids.

"The UN is worried about these guys, they must be really badass!"

It's like how there's between someone being killed in an accident and someone being murdered. Intent is a factor.

If you target civilians and kill civilians with the goal to terrorize a population, then you're terrorist. If you target a military asset with the goal to defeat an enemy fighting force then you're taking a military action even if you accidentally kill civilians.

And no, wars are not supposed to fair. It's not a sport with rules and referees to make sure everything is fair both sides. This is real life not a Call of Duty game. If you're fighting against a superior military force you're not being brave, you're just getting a lot of people killed for nothing.

Non-violent resistance has a higher probability of success and fewer people die even if it fails. That's the path to a Palestinian state the violence of Hamas has been a complete failure. That should be obvious.

Nothing Hamas has done has improved anything for Palestinians. They just killed a lot of people and got Gaza destroyed.

Terrorists are bad.

Calling for the state of Israel to no longer exist and calling for all Jewish residents within its borders to be either killed or displaced are two rather distinct things.

Indeed it is. From the IRGC: "Either you must choose 'gradual death' in hellish life in shelters or save your lives from the 24-hour missile rain and flee as soon as possible from the lands usurped by your ancestors, so that you may survive." https://iranwire.com/en/news/142321-irgc-says-it-fired-2000-kilometer-range-missiles-at-israel/

So they literally are "calling for all Jewish residents within its borders to be either killed or displaced" which is distinct from calling for "the state of Israel to no longer exist". So we're clear about Iran's intent now, this isn't putting words into your or the IRGC's mouths. This is coming directly from the mouths of the IRGC.

Does this mean the IRGC is committing genocide?

I mostly agree with you. Sorry if it seems like I'm nitpicking, but you said a lot there (and that's not a bad thing) so I'm just breaking it down a little.

Both sides have legitimate reasons to hate

I don't think hate is ever legitimate.

neither side seems interested in murdering everyone on the other side

Iranians are encourages to regularly chant "death to Israel" regularly. I don't feel comfortable trusting that it's just propaganda and there's no intent there. We've been burned a lot lately with because people voted for Trump thinking "he's just saying he wants to deport millions of people, he won't really do that". Sometimes the crazy things people say is just propaganda, sometimes it's what they really mean. Having trust that an authoritarian is lying seems unwise.

And if I think long term, some young person in Iran chanting "death to Israel" today may someday in a position of power in the future. Bad things could happen someday if a true believer gets into power. Especially if Iran has a nuclear weapon on that day. So I understand why Israel is doing everything they can to prevent Iran from having nuclear weapons. It's life or death for them.

I also understand why they want a regime change in Iran. Even if their nuclear weapons program is gone today, they could rebuild it and in a decade or so we're doing this all over again. But a regime change is something Iranians will have to fight for, we all know regime changes imposed by foreign countries don't work out well. No way to know if that will happen, that's beyond anyone's control outside of Iran.

The problem is that most Muslim-majority countries don’t see Israel as legitimate, because it was created arbitrarily by western powers by taking land away from Muslims.

And that's the problem. That's irrelevant now because most of the population of Israel was born there. I've met Israelis and they weren't particularly religious. Israel isn't some "Holy Land" to them it's the place where they were born. People have a right to live where they were born. Wanting to restore the ethnic makeup of a region to conform to how it was in a history book is fascistic thinking. Now the Israelis I've met were just the ones that travel so obviously there are different kinds people in Israel that do think it's a holy mission to makes settlements and all of the bullshit. But the wrongs that have been done with the settlements doesn't justify massacring villages or anything else Iran's terrorist proxies are doing.

This hatred of Israel isn't good for other countries in the middle east. Hate is the easiest emotion for authoritarians to manipulate. This results in people being more acting of authoritarian regimes so long as the do some display of attacking "the evil enemy".

I hope people can get put aside their hatred long enough to see the destruction it's caused. Hating Israel isn't improving anything for people in Gaza or anywhere else in the Middle East.

So you consider Israel doing any negotiation with Hamas to be support for Hamas?

So Israel should continue this war until every last member of Hamas is dead, otherwise they'd be "supporting Hamas"?

You don't like that Israel made deals to send humanitarian aid into Gaza? So you want all humanitarian aid to be cut off from Gaza because that could be considered support for Hamas?

Hamas got into power because a plurality of Palestinians voted for them. Like all fascists, they didn't hold elections after they got power, so we really don't know how much support they have from the Palestian people living in Gaza. But there have been times when Israel (hostage deals) has to deal with them since they are the government. Some people characterize making any deal with Hamas to be "supporting Hamas" because they don't want Israel making any deal with Hamas.

So you've provided me with some opinions from other people. But do you think Israel making a hostage deals with Hamas should be considered as Israel supporting Hamas?

Edgy!

started all of the troubles in the Middle East in the first place.

Wow... just wow. You really need to read a history book if you think there was never any troubles in the Middle East before modern Israel existed.

You're doing the leftist reductive thing so complex issues become a simplistic "it's all the system, man..."

This doesn't make you look as clever as you think it does. It'll eventually turn you into a conspiracy nut where everything is because of "them". Please make an effort to stay on topic.