There have been christians there for 2000 years so why aren't all christians allowed to move there?
Why should they be? I mean, your argument is that
(1) Jews haven't lived in Israel in 2000 years; therefore
(2) It's unreasonable that Jews should be permitted to move back.
I am simply pointing out that the premise of your argument is incorrect.
It's also worth pointing out that Israel has not attacked Egypt or Jordan in quite some time. Because what you call "attacking" is actually just defense.
In any event, from whom exactly is Israel "steal[ing]" land, and how did such land come to belong to other groups in the first place? Was it simply a matter of ethnically cleansing the land and living there for a while? Or is it something else?
Is it your view that after the Arabs ethnically cleansed Hebron of Jews in the 1930s and 40s, it became Arab land forever, and if Jews come back they are necessarily "stealing"?
omw_68
4d ago
Yet people who haven't lived there for 2000 years are allowed to move to Israel.
FWIW there were Jews living in (Eastern) Jerusalem, Hebron, and Gaza City for hundreds if not thousands of years before the Arab ethnic cleansing of these areas in the 1930s and 1940s.
omw_68
4d ago
Is there any way for Iran to credibly promise not to get a nuclear weapon in the foreseeable future?
I would say "probably, yes." As an extreme example, they could agree to permit the establishment of a joint US/Israel military base within Iran; that all the money from their oil sales would go through an escrow account in the United States to be immediately frozen in case of non-compliance; that a US led task force would have the right to inspect any location in Iran at any time without advance notice and remove and/or dismantle any nuclear materials or equipment; that the US led task force would have the right to install kill switches in all Iranian ships and military vehicles allowing the US to remotely immobilize them with the touch of a button; etc.
It strikes me that with each Israeli-USA attack on Iran, it becomes more obvious to any Iranian that a nuclear weapon might be a useful thing to have. The bombings might set back the physical process, but they increase the motivation.
I think the motivation is pretty close to being maxed out at this point.
If a bunch of guys come to my house several times and kick in my door and beat me up and break my furniture and tell me "you better not get a gun, if you get a gun we'll get really angry!" My first thought, and I would think any man's first thought, is "I better get a gun."
Well, if they only came to your house and beat you up when you yourself had beat up their family members, it might occur to you that it might make sense to simply stop beating up their family members.
I just can't see a way for Iran to credibly make a promise that they don't want a nuclear weapon in a world where they quite obviously should want a nuclear weapon.
Well there is a difference between "get" and "want." I agree that they can't credibly promise not to WANT a nuclear weapon, but if they are willing to make enough concessions, they could probably make a compelling argument that they will refrain from trying to GET a nuclear weapon.
omw_68
4d ago
When even Israeli sources make the point that Israel in fact has knowingly propped up terrorists / militia that target Israel, that makes your "doubt" rather poorly sourced
I'm still not sure I understand your point. The claim I made was as follows:
I doubt Israel has been doing what Iran has been doing, namely having an organization like Hezbollah, which is effectively controlled by Iran, to engage in terrorism against Israel.
It seems your argument is as follows:
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Israel has permitted Hamas to receive money from abroad and has legitimized Hamas by negotiating indirectly with them.
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Therefore Israel has supported a terrorist organization.
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Therefore it's unreasonable to be skeptical that Israel is controlling a terrorist organization in the way that Iran has controlled Hamas.
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In any event, even if Israel does not control Hamas, it's treatment of Hamas is equivalent to Iran's control of Hezbollah because Israel supports Hamas' targeting of Israel.
Does that sum up your position?
omw_68
4d ago
Palestinian drive to take back their land
Are you prepared to identify exactly what land is implicated by the "Palestinian drive to take back their land"? For example, does it include, Gaza, Hebron, Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, etc.?
Also, how did that land come to be "Palestinian" in your view? Was it just a matter of ethnically cleansing the previous inhabitants and staying there for a while? Or was more involved?
It would be great if you could set forth the underlying principles -- if any.
omw_68
4d ago
the sets of people that see American forces as a proxy for Israel and those that see action against Iran as justifiable are pretty close to disjoint.
For what it's worth, I would agree that this statement is probably correct. That being said, I doubt that even the most rabid-Israel haters would deny that Israel is participating directly in the attacks on Iran.
omw_68
5d ago
Well they did blow up a bunch of kids
So you are confident it was Israel who did that?
That could get anyone's blood up.
I take it you dispute that Iran's leadership was already close to being maximally hostile to Israel?
Things can always get worse.
And things can get better as well. In my view, (1) it's pretty clearly better for Israel to be feared than to be loved; and (2) things can't get much worse in terms of the hostility of the Iranian government towards Israel. I take it you disagree with these claims?
However, Khameini's death means his fatwa against nuclear weapons no longer holds. If the IRGC take control, as militaries have been known to do in wartime, then we may see a much more militarized, nuclearized and aggressive Iran. They absolutely can and likely will hate Israel more than they hate them now! There are only so many regime-change attempts they can take before turning a latent nuclear program into a real nuclear program.
Yeah, after this latest attack, the Iranian government is going to REALLY hate Israel and REALLY try to develop nuclear weapons. [/sarcasm]
Edit: Oops, after reading a sarcastic comment from someone else, I had forgotten that you aren't supposed to use sarcasm here.
What I am trying to say is that the Iranian government's hatred of Israel and desire for nuclear weapons was pretty maximal before the latest attack, so I doubt that this will provoke the reaction you predict. At this point, the main thing for Israel (and the US) to do, to paraphrase the Untouchables, is the Chicago Way.
omw_68
5d ago
Sarcastically: if it's fair game for Iran to attack Israel through its proxy militia Hezbollah, then it's fair game for Israel to attack Iran with its proxy American forces.
I'm not sure what your point is here. Rather than using sarcasm, can you spell it out explicitly? TIA.
omw_68
5d ago
Iran funding people who shoot at Israel is well within the normal rules.
I'm not sure what your point is here. What rules are you talking about?
Iran did in fact start it with the shots at Israel, however, and they've been going tit-for-tat for months.
I'm not sure what your point is here either. Is it your position that there is some kind of equivalency between Iran's aggressive terrorist campaigns and Israel's self-defense?
In any event, you don't seem to dispute that Israel's recent activities can't be reasonably described as a "war of aggression."
omw_68
5d ago
"Thus, amid this bid to impair Abbas, Hamas was upgraded from a mere terror group to an organization with which Israel held indirect negotiations via Egypt, and one that was allowed to receive infusions of cash from abroad."
I'm really not sure what your point is here. Surely you are not claiming that Israel controls Hamas and uses it to engage in terrorism as Iran has done with Hezbollah?
Maybe just spell out your point explicitly.
omw_68
5d ago
A place like Dubai that has spent decades trying to reinvent itself as a hub of international commerce and banking is in a tight spot if it becomes a target.
As I mentioned elsewhere, I would guess the UAE's leadership is pretty happy about the modest price it is paying to see a major third-party attack against Iran.
omw_68
5d ago
I agree strongly with what you wrote. Bombing for regime change generally does not work.
I tend to agree with this, although it's worth noting that Israel almost certainly has agents on the ground in Iran.
That being said, I think the more important question is what is the downside for Israel in attacking? Iran's leadership and its supporters and allies already maximally hate Israel. So as another poster pointed out, why not roll the dice? If nothing else, it's a free chance to destroy a few more strategic targets in Iran. In fact, I would guess that Israel's leadership has already determined that regime change is pretty unlikely.
omw_68
6d ago
How popular do you think dragging the middle east into a major war is? People hate Israel from the start, now their tourist business in Dubai is shut down because of Israel.
I would guess that the leadership of the UAE is pretty ecstatic about the relatively modest price they are paying as a result of two powerful nations attacking and damaging Iran.
People have this fantasy that without Israel, the Middle East would be all peace-love-dove. The reality is that the UAE correctly perceives Iran to be a significant threat.
omw_68
6d ago
Hasn't everybody and their dog been propping up militias in the region for decades?
I would imagine that's true for some definition of "propping up" and "militia" and "everybody" But I doubt Israel has been doing what Iran has been doing, namely having an organization like Hezbollah, which is effectively controlled by Iran, to engage in terrorism against Israel.
But in any event, assuming for the sake of argument that, as you say, everyone and their dog has been propping up militias in the region for decades, the claim on the table is that the recent strike constitutes a "war of aggression" by Israel. To me, "war of aggression" means military activity which is substantially unprovoked against an enemy which poses no substantial threat. Pretty clearly this was NOT a war of aggression by Israel.
omw_68
6d ago
You are nakedly a partisan on this issue and therefore probably emotionally obliged to try and spin this as both a massive blunder and an act of unprovoked evil from Israel
Agreed, given that Iran has been relentlessly attacking Israel (through proxies) for many years now, it's difficult to see how anyone could reasonably see this as "another Israeli war of aggression." To be sure, many people will (unreasonably) see it that way, but those people already hate Israel and there's nothing Israel could do (short of disappearing) which would change their minds.
Will this activity make Israel less popular? For the same reason, I tend to doubt it. But even if it does, it's far more important for Israel to be feared than to be loved.
omw_68
6d ago
You can't draw an equality sign between woke and self righteous moralism as wokism has no monopoly on it
I absolutely agree with this, which is why I was careful to use the word "liberal" in my post. I said:
But ultimately woke is just liberal self-righteous moralism
See eg. the religious right,
Definitely that's true as to certain places and times. In the place and time where I live, I don't see much of evidence of this.
war on porn
I'm not sure what you are referring to here.
omw_68
6d ago
Since when have typical San Francisco tech people cared about mass domestic surveillance or autonomous weapons more than they have cared about woke?
I think you need to define "woke" here. In common parlance, woke is about things like "racial equity" "transphobia," and so on. But ultimately woke is just liberal self-righteous moralism, and attempts to impose that moralism on other people. It's about motte principles which seem reasonable on their surface combined with bailey attempts to control and persecute outsiders.
If a wokey says that he just wants to make sure that his technology can't be used for fully autonomous weapon systems, I would be pretty nervous. Who gets to decide what's a "fully autonomous weapon system," and what might that mean after some woke mental gymnastics?
It's the same reason I wouldn't buy a car with some kind of automatic collision avoidance system designed by Silicon Valley effective altruists. No, I get to decide where my car goes and whether I run over someone standing in my way.
omw_68
6d ago
I think we're just seeing "AI safety"'s rubber hit the road, as it were. It is kind of a silly concept.
Well for me, "AI Safety" means having systems in place so as to prevent AI systems from taking harmful and unintended action. But I'm talking about serious harm, the kind of stuff in Eliezer Yudkowsky's scenarios.
I am not talking about a situation where you ask an AI to generate a picture of a CEO and it makes the person a white man, thus reinforcing a bizarre stereotype.
Of course the military does not want its tools to have opinions or disobey orders.
Agreed, the tools should do exactly what the operators intend for them to do -- nothing more and nothing less. To me, that's kind of the essence of AI safety.
civilians with delusions of grandeur,
Yeah, based on my interactions with people in that community, I would rather put my trust in bureaucrats in Northern Virginia than rationalists in Silicon Valley. Although admittedly it's a close call.
omw_68
6d ago
What exactly do you think life is like for Iranian women?
Probably not so bad compared to life for your average Iranian man. That's just the way of our gynocentric world.
Still, the fact that women are privileged in most parts of the world has never stopped western feminists from complaining about even the smallest (perceived) disadvantages suffered by women in comparison to men. Probably in convenience stores in Iran, they have women's disposable razors with pink handles and which cost an extra rial or so.
No, what stops western feminists from complaining is (1) they don't want to go against their allies in the progressive movement and any criticism of Iran is perceived as helping Israel, one of the big Bogeymen of the progressive movement; and (2) ultimately they care only about maximizing their goodies and gibs so it's more productive to complain about the lack of female tech entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley.
Would you mind identifying what land is "Palestinian land"? Does it include Gaza City? Hebron? Ramallah? Tel Aviv?
Also, how did that lend get to be "Palestinian land"? Was it just a matter of ethnically cleansing it and occupying it for a while? Or was more involved?
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