VIM
11d ago
1/ There were hundreds of thousands of Jews living in mandatory Palestine prior to Israel's war of independence that the Arabs tried to slaughter as soon as the Brits moved out. Establishing the state of Israel was the process of not allowing this to happen. On a pure lives saved vs lost basis, this by itself justifies the existence of Israel even considering all Jews killed worldwide since then.
It seems like this begs the question of how Jews survived in Jerusalem for a thousand years under successive Muslim regimes (Ottomans, Mamluks, Ayyubids, etc) with minimal issue yet in 1947 Arabs suddenly decided to try to fight a much better equipped foe. Perhaps the Arabs weren't driven to violence by the prospect of living alongside Jews who had been there for thousands of years but by the prospect of being politically dominated by, forcibly removed from their homes by or outright slaughtered by a would-be Jewish state or terrorist paramilitary groups like the Irgun.
It's not like there weren't other options. A minority faction of Zionists from Ihud wanted a single binational state and cooperation with the Arabs but their proposals were rejected. What would have saved even more lives than the 1947 war would have been if such a war had been avoided entirely.
2/ Israel makes Jews unpopular, but Jews have always been unpopular, so once again this is a bad faith line of argument. The idea that Jews might have reacted to the holocaust by thinking "maybe we shouldn't establish a sovereign state, because then people might really not like us" is hard to entertain with a straight face.
There's "people calling you names" unpopular and then there's "people trying to wipe you out" unpopular. The latter has never had any purchase whatsoever in the United States and even the former has typically been highly stigmatized. Endangering a favorable position within the most powerful empire in human history so that you can have a country where you can look forward to getting your house levelled by missiles or getting kidnapped by terrorists just doesn't seem very rational, particularly from the perspective of an American Jew.
You think those tunnels to Egypt were for tourists
If we're to believe the IDF those have been out of commission since they took over the Philadelphi Corridor over a year ago. Also, both Israeli casualty reports and Qassam combat footage overwhelmingly shows the use of indigenous IEDs and other weapons that could only be manufactured locally. It would be silly for a cell based organization like Hamas to depend on imports.
They were "unable" or that wasn't their plan? I'm just aware of what the general sentiment was about how things went in 2006 vs. 2025 and in the latter it's widely agreed Hezbollah got beaten to an embarrassing degree.
The IDF very clearly tried to take Al-Khiam for a photo-op at the former detention center and failed. The primary difference between 2006 and 2025 is expectations: they both featured failed ground offensives but in the former case Netanyahu avoided making big promises about destroying Hezbollah forever like Ehud Olmert did (though I do recall him claiming he'd occupy everything south of the Litani, a goal he fell well short of) whereas Hezbollah set a goal beyond simply surviving that they weren't able to meet.
Ok now you're just being delusional and I have to doubt you know what a "credible" source is here. Iran's launchers are not all underground. That's total nonsense. You have to believe that the IDF is just lying I guess and that all those bombs they dropped didn't do much.
T&P claims that JDAMs were used but the citation used to "prove" this is an article which only ever claims that jets took off carrying JDAMs, with none of the strikes identified as using bunker busters or even regular bombs. Nearly all were above ground soft targets like buildings and the strikes on underground facilities were aimed at entrances rather than the repeated direct strikes on bunkers one would expect if Israel actually had total freedom of operation over Iran. Ironically even your own pro-Israeli sources basically support my thesis.
So the IAF is just lying about this? Also they were dropping JDAMs and bunker busters. There are photos of the damage.
So far your only source is the IDF and people who uncritically believe claims made by the IDF. And yes, the IAF is definitely lying because by day six they were reduced to reposting footage of destroyed missile launchers from day one. If they actually owned the skies and were picking off Iranian launchers all war then why did all the footage come out right at the beginning and then get reused?
You're confused about how Israel decides to do things in light of U.S. pressure and risk. Israel does not want to piss Trump off about Iran.
If Iran were legitimately totally defenseless then why would Israel care about what Trump thinks? Again, they've had no problem pissing him off about Lebanon and Syria. If anything Trump has been significantly more friendly to Jolani than the Iranians so you'd think pissing him off about Syria would be more risky. For that matter, why would he care? Every indication is that he had no problem with Israel one sidedly bombing Iran forever, it was only when Iran started landing counterpunches that he became interested in deescalation.
The IAF had drones over Iranian airspace, which are much easier to shoot down. Hard to believe they didn't have faster combat aircraft dropping munitions. I'd imagine that the aircraft stayed much higher in Iranian airspace because of the risk being much higher than in Syria.
On the flipside, they had drones that were shot down so it's just as easy to imagine that Netanyahu simply didn't bother taking the risk. In this case the burden of proof that Israel was dropping bombs in Iranian airspace is on you, since basically all of the identified strikes look like the result of air launched missiles, not bombs.
In your mind Iran came out better here? Israel called off aircraft mid-flight because Trump demanded it, but you think Israel was actually glad to stop.
On the first day Israel went for a decapitation strike followed by regime change while the Iranians were totally caught with their pants down. Yet the regime did not collapse and after a few hours of chaos they reorganized and proceeded to return fire in sufficient volume to break Israeli AD nearly every day. They hit strategic sites at will, including the Weizmann Institute, the Bazan oil refinery and Camp Moshe Dayan. Not with piddly Hamas bottle rockets but seriously destructive ballistic missiles, a single of which was able to destroy enough real estate in Tel Aviv to leave 2000 Israelis homeless.
In contrast, the quality of Israeli targets fell considerably; on day 1 they were wiping out commanders with ease, on day 12 they were reduced to hitting a giant clock in Tehran and hitting a prison, killing a bunch of dissidents and achieving the nearly impossible feat of making Iranian dissidents cheer for the IRGC. America blew through nearly a quarter of the GLOBAL ballistic missile interceptor stockpile, suggesting that Israel would already be defenseless by day 12 if not for American help.
Had the war continued it would have continued to get worse and worse for Israel. Fortunately Israel was able to leverage the threat of direct American offensive involvement beyond choreographed bombings that result in zero injuries, otherwise the Iranians would have had little reason to agree to a deal.
VIM
14d ago
How does Israel make Jews safe?
I've seen it suggested that having a Jewish state creates a refuge that isn't dependent on the goodwill of non-Jews. Yet the past several years have demonstrated that Israel isn't actually self sufficient and that it is, in fact, totally dependent on trade with Europe and aid from America for it's continued existence. Israeli Jews would hardly be any safer than American Jews in a scenario where their primary patron went anti-semitic.
Yet even in a world where America does unconditionally support Israel I can't help but think of anyone who takes Aliyah as a certified moron. Modern Israel is not a safe place for Jews, it's a place where thousands of Jews can be killed or maimed in a day and hundreds kidnapped. If you are kidnapped, the "Jewish State" will not pull all the stops to save your life but will instead attempt to murder you to prevent you from being used as a bargaining chip. If you survive that then your best hope is that public pressure will eventually force Israel to free some mass killing gigaterrorists in exchange for your life, since Israel has demonstrated that it is incapable of rescuing hostages by force after more than 2 years of intense combat against the weakest militia on it's border.
All this for the low, low price of North Korean taxes, mandatory conscription, reserve service, and getting arrested if you choose to vacation anywhere outside of the US
Even for non-Israeli Jews who don't care about Israel either way, the brutal yet failed campaign to destroy Hamas is a giant anti-semitism producing machine. If the ghost of Hitler possessed Netanyahu with the goal of empowering a new generation of anti-semites then he could hardly have done better. Before 10/7, the slightest hint of anti-semitism was instantly denounced. Today, when the giga-normie Nelk Boys interview Bibi the next day they're forced to go on an apology tour with all the big name internet anti-semites like Nick Fuentes and Sneako. The shift in the public perception of Israelis and Jews is so downright seismic and probably couldn't be replicated in a world without a "Jewish state" soaking up bad press.
VIM
14d ago
Assad, no. Iran and Hezbollah, yes. One needs supplies.
The overwhelming majority of Hamas's supplies are made in Gaza, though. There's a blockade, after all.
This is not true. Israel was largely considered to be the loser in that conflict, or at least having underperformed. In 2025, Israel blew the fuck out of Hezbollah after demonstrating that Hezbollah was almost entirely militarily ineffective.
Yet the ceasefire imposed after 2006 and resulting situation, other than the assassination of Nasrallah, was identical from Hezbollah's perspective. They were bombed one-sidedly after the ceasefire was signed, they were repressed by the Lebanese government and they were portrayed as being incapable of fighting again. If anything the Lebanese government of 2006 was both more powerful and more explicitly anti-Hezbollah than the current one.
To this day the majority of Israelis from northern communities have yet to return and a significant proportion have stated they'll never return. Considering that the goal of the Lebanon War was to return Israelis to the border I'd call that a failure.
When Israel actually blew the fuck out of the PLO their ground forces weren't held up at the first villages they entered, they pushed all the way to Beirut, forced the PLO out of Lebanon and occupied all of southern Lebanon for the next two decades. Whereas this time around they were unable to even conquer the first frontline villages of Khiam and Al-Naqoura without getting, as you say, "blown the fuck out".
I've seen some credible-sounding reports that moderates/reformers are rising in power/prominence due to the embarrassing defeat
All the credible reports I've heard from Iran are that the hardliners are the ones rising in power while the reformers were humiliated by getting betrayed in the middle of negotiations. If your story were accurate we would expect new concessions in negotiations whereas in reality Iran hasn't moved an inch and has refused to even reopen negotiations.
However, it's in a much weaker position than it was before, and longstanding problems like the economy continue to worsen.
An odd comparison, how is Israel's economy doing? Last I checked the Houthis had entirely shut down the Port of Eilat, the Bazan Gas Refinery is still partially shut down more than a month after eating Iranian missiles and the Israeli deficit is gigantic. And this is in a world with unlimited American and European backing, what do you think happens to Israel's economy in a world where it's trade partners turn hostile?
Iran's missile production and launching capacities were hammered pretty hard, so you really have to squint to see the silver lining in the dark clouds of "we launched a bunch of our prized military capability at Israel and had nearly zero military effect."
Iran's missile production and launching capacities are quite literally underground. There's zero evidence that they took significant losses in that respect, whereas the fact that it took less than 10 missiles on day 12 to land hits when on day 1 it took more than a hundred proves that Israel's air defenses were collapsing. If anything it's the Israeli strikes that had zero military effect.
This take is directly contradicted by the NYT article I cite. I'm not sure exactly how accurate that portrayal was or is now, but the IRGC hardliners look like they just died a lot.
clearly you missed the funeral where half the "dead IRGC hardliners" miraculously turned up alive. Again: if the hardliners lost big then where are the diplomatic concessions?
It remains to be seen what Israel's red lines will actually be for e.g. Iran rebuilding certain military capacities. But the IAF demonstrated the ability to conduct air strikes at will and there's little hope for Iran that they can suddenly acquire or develop top-tier air defense systems.
Israel has demonstrated that it can launch missiles from over the horizon and hit targets in Iran, but they don't have the ability to actually fly directly over Iran dropping bombs, something that would be necessary to inflict any damage to their underground strategic infrastructure.
If anything, the fact that Israel barked so hard about the possibility of resuming strikes is another indication that they lost. Because Israel doesn't bark when they want to bomb Syria, they just do it. Syria actually has zero air defenses, and there is actual footage of Israeli jets flying freely over Syria dropping bombs. There is no such footage of Israeli jets over Iran.
that Israel could do it all again.
Again, if Israel didn't receive an ass-whooping from Iran they would still be bombing Iran. Remember, Trump also told them to stop bombing Syria and Lebanon and they were ignored.
VIM
15d ago
It wouldn't just be military aid, it would also be the diplomatic cover. If the American President had the foreign policy sensibilities of a Mamdani or a Fuentes then Israel would be instantly sanctioned and isolated. Considering Israel is entirely dependent on imports they wouldn't last long. At a minimum it would be impossible under such circumstances to maintain a standard of living comparable to what it manages today.
Remember that the US also pays Egypt and Jordan billions of dollars in aid every year as protection money for Israel. The real bill of protecting them is far higher than just the cost of the bombs.
VIM
15d ago
So did the Viet Cong.
You really believe Hamas invented the concept of digging tunnels to neutralize airpower? Seriously?
VIM
15d ago
North Korea also has nukes, and I imagine an Israel without American support would, in the best case scenario, look a lot like North Korea.
Except I doubt the upper echelons of Israeli society would tolerate living in North Korea, so it probably would simply cease to exist like South Africa, another country whose nukes were of little use.
VIM
15d ago
First off, does Hamas really care about what happens to Assad or Iran? They take Iranian weapons but they also backed the Syrian rebels against Assad, they aren't exactly a full on proxy of Iran like Hezbollah. If anything the fact that Iran was ultimately dragged into the fight despite desperately trying to stay out of it directly is a Hamas W.
Second, the damage to the AoR seems pretty overblown:
- Hezbollah is in the same position it was in 2006, with a nominally one sided ceasefire and a hostile Lebanese government forcing them to lay low temporarily, yet they still maintain total control over southern Lebanon
- Houthis are stronger and more influential than ever, successfully shut down the port of Eilat and collect hundreds of millions if not billions from holding up passing ships
- Iran survived Israel's best shot at regime change and responded with enough missiles to break Israel's missile shield and deplete it's interception capacity down to nearly 50%
Syria is a real loss but Assad was always the weakest link and his fall had more to do with his own incompetence than Israeli brilliance, otherwise they would have rolled southern Lebanon the way Al-Jolani rolled Syria.
The vast majority of their ballistic missile assets are underground. The fact that they have a handful of aboveground production facilities (mostly holdovers from before they developed their underground capabilities) doesn't change that.
I never claimed otherwise, but this doesn't contradict my point which is that Iran launched exactly as many missiles as they needed to hit their targets and to maximally exhaust Israeli AD. Iran had to operate under the assumption that the war could last for months and potentially involve the US, they couldn't just blast off everything they had right at the beginning of an attritional war.
Yet they somehow made even less progress on the ground compared with 2006 despite all this. The rate of rocket fire actually increased towards the end of the war. They assassinated plenty of Hezbollah leaders but historically that hasn't made much difference; the day Nasrallah's predecessor was assassinated one of the Israeli papers (I want to say Maariv) ran the headline of "HEZBOLLAH DEFEATED". As Obama discovered, assassinations don't win wars.
There is a different way to read Hezbollah's inaction when Iran was hit, namely that they recognized that their help wasn't necessary. Had they pulled off a coup on day 1 then Hezbollah would have made no difference and otherwise it was clear that Israel lacked the ability to win in an extended exchange.
Hitting Mashhad proves that they didn't control Iranian airspace, because it's known at this point that Israel was attacking Iran from the north by crossing Azeri airspace to reach the Caspian. From that distance Mashhad is just 550 KM or less than 350 miles, well in range of ALBMs, potentially closer if they were willing to go through Turkmenistan.
Here's a question: if Israel actually controlled that airspace then why didn't they fly over the most fortified and valuable targets dropping dozens of bunker busters the way they did to get Nasrallah? Instead all of the satellite imagery matches up with the theory of missile strikes on soft targets. If the Mashhad airport strike is your best evidence that the IAF had air supremacy then that basically proves they didn't.
You think air defenses are suppressed but the political cost of being wrong and an IAF pilot getting taken hostage is unlimited, so you send drones first. The drones get shot down, confirming that AD remains operational. You then agree to a ceasefire, having confirmed that you can't just bomb them without.
Makes more sense then "non-operational air defenses miraculously down drones and then you agree to a ceasefire for no reason"
If you thought that blowing up the TV broadcaster would cause the Iranian people to spontaneously rise up then a few ALBMs would be a small price to pay. The goal was clearly regime change, not a war of attrition. As soon as they failed they called in Trump to give them a face saving exit before the cost of using fancy missiles to blow up clocks, jails and TV broadcasters became apparent.
On my side, literally all of the OSINT satellite evidence, strike location and damage assessments matching up with my explanation. On your side, the Israel government making claims with zero proof of any kind.
It's good to see you understand why this is such an important dispute, though,
They hit took out a lot of military leaders assembled for exercises but as far as I know nobody confirmed that it was an actual command bunker or even that the IAF was responsible. Most of the confirmed assassinations have been ascribed to Mossad drones, Mossad Spike missiles and the occasional Mossad bomb, all of which could plausibly have taken out the assembled generals just as easily as an IAF bomb.
Alternatively, penetrating a bunker is within the capabilities of the higher yield Sparrow variants like the Silver Sparrow and the Golden Horizon. The damage assessed from the (failed) attempted strikes on Arak and Natanz were performed by such missiles so it wouldn't be farfetched to assume that the successful assassination was their responsibility too.
Still, lets be generous here and assume it was the responsibility of the IAF, and that it was a bomb and not just a missile (or several). Why did this only happen on day 1? Why weren't they able to replicate the pace of assassinations for the remainder of the war, or to take out comparably valuable targets like the missile cities? Even if it were true, this seems more suggestive that they had temporary access to Iranian airspace granted by Mossad blowing decades of assets to give a few hours of access rather than actual aerial supremacy.
So Iran was defenseless, Trump decides to call off Israel for no reason thereby saving Iran, Israel decides to obey Trump despite having previously had no problem disobeying him regarding Lebanon and Syria. Today, Iran is openly defying Trump by continuing nuclear enrichment and Trump is threatening to restart strikes, yet Israel is still doing nothing to Iran while continuing to bomb Syria in active defiance of Trump. I dunno, I still think the explanation that he was saving Israel rather than Iran makes more sense.
Also, fact check, Israel took billions of dollars in losses over just twelve days, and that was with Israeli and American AD operating at peak efficiency. I've yet to hear what "meaningful damage" done to Iran makes that comparatively not meaningful, since they recovered from the assassinations pretty easily.
It's been made abundantly clear within Israeli media that they never had a shot at Khamenei regardless of the bluster, they just assumed that taking out a significant portion of the top military leadership combined with direct threats to murder their families if they didn't rise up would cause the regime to collapse. Instead the older and more cautious elements were instantly replaced by young IRGC hardliners, pretty much the exact opposite of the intended result. It increasingly seems like your arguments only make sense if you unquestioning believe Israeli claims and also assume they would never unwittingly do something stupid and shortsighted.
90% of those missiles were basically chaff designed to drain Israeli AD. The higher quality ones actually intended to hit something had no issue getting through and obliterating Israel's highest value targets. The longer the war lasted, the less "chaff" needed and the more effective strikes on target, particularly since several of the more accurate and higher yield (but slower and easier to intercept) missiles weren't even brought out once.
The nuclear program wasn't gone and neither were the missile cities. If the IAF actually had total air control then they wouldn't be sending missiles at clocks, they'd be Nasrallah-bunker-busting every Iranian fortress and knocking out those capabilities for good.
Yes, the US didn't want to get drawn in. But if Iran had responded to Trump's ceasefire offer by humiliating him Putin style and continued pounding Israel indefinitely then it's pretty hard to imagine Trump not getting drawn in. Beating Israel is easy but beating America is not. Their only options were to risk an existential war immediately or to take a ceasefire and to prepare for the day when Israel no longer has American backing. There are arguments for the former but it's easy to see why they chose the latter. On the flipside there's no reason why Trump or Israel would cut a favourable truce with their worst enemy at their weakest only to impotently threaten to return to fighting by the end of the month because said worst enemy continues to defy them.
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