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PaperclipPerfector  4mo ago (text post)   35621 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of June 9, 2025

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HAPPENING NOW: ISRAEL LAUNCHES MASSIVE ATTACK AGAINST IRANESE NUCLEAR FACILITIES—AIR RAID SIRENS HEARD ALL ACROSS ISRAEL—MASSIVE AIR ACTIVITY OVER IRAQ-SYRIA BORDER—MULTIPLE EXPLOSIONS CONFIRMED IN TEHRAN INCLUDING COLLAPSED BUILDING—IRANIAN FIGHTER JETS SEEN TAKING OFF FROM AIRSTRIPS NEAR TEHRAN—BALLISTIC MISSILE LAUNCHES REPORTED IN IRAN—REPORTS OF EXPLOSIONS AT US BASES IN IRAQ—MULTIPLE EXPLOSIONS HEARD NEAR IRAN’S NATANZ NUCLEAR FACILITY—VIDEO FOOTAGE SHOWING NATANZ NUCLEAR FACILITY BURNING—UNCONFIRMED REPORTS THAT THE CHIEF OF STAFF OF THE IRANIAN MILITARY HAS BEEN KILLED IN A TARGETED STRIKE

—Inb4 source

—Inb4 “low effort post ban” Additional facts and my thoughts will be added as the situation develops

When confronted with criticism from Tucker about getting US involved in this Trump implies that he can just decide that whatever he does is "America First":

“Well, considering that I’m the one that developed ‘America First,’ and considering that the term wasn’t used until I came along, I think I’m the one that decides that,”

Of course, he didn't actually invent the phrase and it wouldn't even make sense if he did; it's a very postmodern argument.

″‘When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean – neither more nor less.’

‘The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you can make words mean so many different things.

’The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘which is to be master — that’s all.

Given that Israel hides their military command center under the heart of Tel Aviv, their most densely-populated city, how many Israeli civilians is Iran justified to bomb in their attempt to destroy this sprawling system?

https://archive.ph/QqNHz

This room is the nerve center of a bunker dubbed the “Fortress of Zion,” a new Israeli Army command post deep underground beneath its headquarters in the heart of Tel Aviv. It is designed to command the kind of high-tech air wars that have supplanted ground invasions fought by tanks and infantry battalions.

When Israel decided to launch its air assault on Gaza, thousands from military headquarters above ground joined the bunker. Also present were members of intelligence agencies like the Mossad and Shin Bet, Israel’s domestic intelligence agency, and Foreign Ministry and police representatives.

Obviously, it is not Iran’s fault that Israel hides their command center among civilians; neither is it Iran’s fault that Israel does not publish the exact coordinates of each room of the base. It would appear that Iran is justified to inflict somewhere between 5,000 to 10,000 civilian casualties in Israel in their pursuit to reach the Israeli leadership. At least, going by the normative Hamas:civilian casualty ratio which Israel has defended since the Gaza war began.

Israeli Army command post deep underground beneath its headquarters

Isn't that like saying "there's a US Army command post/bunker deep underground beneath the Pentagon"? And yes, launch as many bombs as you want at the Pentagon/bunkers beneath it during a war; it's certainly not a war crime to hit any nearby civilians with a miss.

I'm just waiting for random attacks on buildings to be justified as 'Theres a SCIF there!' and have a whole web of 3 letter national agencies try to figure out which dumbfuck might have put a SCIF in Office Tower 55.

Before I get accused of 'justifying attacks on civilians' (not that I particularly care about the moral valence of such a statement as much as I care about the trotting out of this thought-terminating cliche as some gotcha meant to end all subsequent conversation), the primary objection to mass ballistic strikes against theoretical civilian or decision making centers is that there often will be more immediate threats that actually further ones cause of shifting the balance of power. Hegseth can shitpost from the Pentagon Pizza Hut all he wants, but if the 5th Fleet is blocked off the Strait of Hormuz he's just being a little bitch. The Houthis arguably achieved more strategic impact by lobbing shitbottles at random vessels in the Red Sea than the Hamas rocket attacks ever did.

It would be like saying there’s a sprawling tunnel system beneath Manhattan which America uses as their primary war room. The Pentagon isn’t even in the middle of DC, let alone under the skyscrapers of Manhattan.

Other than the use of the term "sprawling" (which seems to be doing a lot of heavy lifting), is there anything to indicate that this center does go underneath skyscrapers, and not just the military complex above it? I couldn't find anything in the article you linked, but there may be other information out there.

Does Iran have the ability to destroy that command center? My understanding is that the whole point of building such things underground is to make them resistant to air attacks.

If they do, then the answer is yes. When you're fighting a shooting war then of course you have the right to attack all military targets. This is not a subject under serious dispute, except by a few frivolous activists who are just looking for excuses to criticize countries they already oppose. If Iran has the ability to destroy that base and they're at war then they have the right to destroy it, even if they have to kill one hundred skajillion innocent babies to do it.

Just like Israel has the right to bomb Gaza to ashes if that's what it takes to keep their citizens safe.

Glad we cleared that up.

Regarding culture war aspects of this: I predict more Israel Bad posts everywhere. I have already seen some on reddit saying they'd rather that Iran have nukes than Israel because Israel has been the main aggressor in the region since its existence and Iran having nukes would help reign them in. I doubt we'll get huge rallies of people shouting "Free Iran!", though.

"Don't paint the devil on the wall"

For a while now, the Left has made a past time out of calling Israel every bad name under the sun. In contrast to those accusations, Israel has behaved honorably in victory. Over the last century, Israeli moderates have proposed many 2 state solutions despite overwhelming victories in wars that were started against it. They've withdrawn from territories they've won and prisoners of war were treated in line with the western standard. Despite every war being started by the Arabs, the left labels Israel as the evil ones.

More recently, (Sharon) acted with generosity by withdrawing from Gaza in 05. In return they got rewarded with Hamas. Through the Arab spring, Muslim nations performed the worst acts of violence on each other, as the western left cheered on the revolutionaries. During this period, Israel remained a peaceful place for its resident Arabs. Yet, 2 newly empowered enemies emerged with self-professed genocidal intent (Houthis and Hezbollah). They're armed by Iran, who through proxy, attests to the same genocidal intent. Once Iran starts developing nukes, the west once more, tried to extend an olive branch. JCPoA (Iran Nuclear deal) was signed. And once again, this generosity was rewarded by resumed development of nukes. Yet, in the eyes of the western left, Israel remained the evil one.

This is where the the first domino fell. Netanyahu solidified his power because the Israeli left was left with no political space to maneuver in. Israelis hadn't changed, but the clearly rising antisemitism among the western left and its Islamic neighborhood pushed Israelis to vote for the one cynical hawk in town : Bibi. While politics shifted right, the average Israeli remained a normal person. 2012-2023, Israel greatly expanded labor permits so Gazans could work on the Israeli side. (~200k daily cross border workers). At home, things were stable.

Then you got, Oct 23. Frankly, the reaction to the tragedy was despicable. I was shocked by the complete lack of empathy from elite western institutions and a "they had it coming" undertone. I think this broke the average Israeli for good. Imagine if your daughter got raped and murdered. Then your friend says "she had it coming". I know I'd see red. A century of accusations being called the devil. If you're going to be called evil either way, might as well go scorched earth and solve the problem once and for all.

Think about it:

  • If Iran's nuclearization is inevitable, then why stop at precise assassinations? Makes more sense to cripple their nuclear infrastructure for good.
  • If a ceasefire with Gaza means another Oct 23 in a decade, then why not raze Hamas for good ?
  • If the next generation of politicians are going to be antisemitic, then why not conduct major military actions while the boomers are still alive ?

Israelis hadn't changed, but the clearly rising antisemitism among the western left and its Islamic neighborhood pushed Israelis to vote for the one cynical hawk in town : Bibi. While politics shifted right, the average Israeli remained a normal person.

this is quite tendentious.

Israelis have changed, and will change more. Demographically, politically, culturally. Israel today is not some offshoot of Western Civilization but a higher-IQ Middle Eastern nation, with all that follows. This narrative is getting very stale.

October 23? what happened 16 days after the terror attack?

I meant October 2023.

I think that's "Oct. '23."

Despite every war being started by the Arabs

Fake history. The Six-Day War was started by Israel and they were the aggressor in Suez.

More recently, (Sharon) acted with generosity by withdrawing from Gaza in 05.

He did that because he concluded it wasn't demographically practical to settle, demolish Palestinian houses and do the standard divide-and-conquer tactics in Gaza. Sharon was not a generous man in any reasonable sense. His military career included war crimes, he founded Unit 101 and is responsible for the Qibya Massacre amongst other things.

Ariel Sharon wrote in his diary that "Qibya was to be an example for everyone," and that he ordered "maximal killing and damage to property". Post-operational reports speak of breaking into houses and clearing them with grenades and shooting.

JCPoA (Iran Nuclear deal) was signed

The US reneged on this when Trump got into office, Trump being heavily backed by Israeli lobbyists who got what they were paying for.

Imagine if your daughter got raped and murdered. Then your friend says "she had it coming".

It really isn't this simple. The Israelis have a habit of shooting Palestinian children in the back, along with unarmed protestors. There's a lot of bad blood on both sides. The Arabs are not nice people either. Wars are unpleasant, borders are formed by bloodshed. However, it is inappropriate and ahistorical to valorize Israel as though they're pure good facing pure evil.

Where is the outrage over all the Palestinians who get sodomized or tortured in Israeli prisons? Israeli parliamentarians have said, on camera, 'oh they had it coming, they're Hamas, we can do anything we like!' The Muslim world are the ones who get upset about this, along with people who read various UN or Human rights reports on the subject. The 'free palestine' leftists are doing the same thing as you, seeing both real and imagined evils of one party, siding with the other and then ignoring their own flaws. This kind of skewed perspective eventually creates support for unsound policies, rousing excessive passions about other people's wars.

If Iran's nuclearization is inevitable

They've been six months away from nukes for 30 years now, according to Israeli intelligence. How is this line of argument evergreen?

The Israelis have a habit of shooting Palestinian children in the back

I once again ask that literally anyone provides me with evidence of this. Not bootstrapped citation farming and not faked x-rays. Specific, unambiguous footage of Palestinian civilians being murdered.

https://x.com/search?q=palestinian%20civilian%20shot&src=typed_query&f=media -- you won't find it here. I've looked in darker places and found nothing there, either, but I could have missed it.

What's so galling about this claim is with the volume of media coming from Palestine and the alleged frequency of the outright murder of civilians, there should be at least one glaring example. One I would have heard by specific reference as it made the rounds among judenkritikal lefties and righties alike. Instead it's always the generic, "They're shooting kids," not "They shot this specific child, here's his body, you'll notice the distinct lack of a head."

I don't give a shit about Israel, I don't want a penny going to them if we don't get a dime back and I don't want one single American dying for that flag. I just want the truth, and being told something exists when I would have seen if it did, and when I then look for it and still can't find it, makes me quite certain the videos don't exist, because the deeds they would show haven't happened, because Israel does not indiscriminately murder civilians. They do murder civilians, many civilians, as is the nature of war in casualty of their real targets. It's just that you can't allow your enemy in war to dictate how you fight. If they use human shields thinking it will save them, you shoot the hostage then the soldier, you blow up the apartment building or hospital. If those shields know with certainty they will be killed by Israel, then it's on them to put down the ones who hold them hostage, and if they don't, they get what they deserve.

It's that old chestnut, where the white supremacy of yesteryear emerges in intersectional politics that can't help but treat whites and especially white men as the only beings on this earth with full agency. The Palestinians either have agency or they don't. If they can't see that there is truly no win condition and behave accordingly, Israel should rule them.

judenkritikal

No such Word in any German dialect I know.

I didn't want to slur all criticism as antisemitism, thus my poor attempt at a novel term.

German is very permissive with compount neologisms, but the constituent parts must be valid. "Kritikal" is not. Maybe for nuclear physicists, but I don't really think so. Try "judenkritisch".

But also, please explain yourself. Why German in the first place?

Policy debate, or that's how I got to it, anyway. If you're not familiar or only passingly familiar, critical theory is sometimes (well, sometimes when I was in, probably dominant now) employed in the type of argument called "kritik," or Ks. Capitalism K, Securitization K, Biopower K.

The instance I'm referencing is this one where he even got acquitted: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2005/nov/16/israel2

But if you want you can do just about any internet search and find similar, albeit less egregious cases: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jun/05/three-year-old-palestinian-boy-shot-by-israeli-soldiers-dies-in-hospital

Neither are what I requested, and neither are what are cited in the modern discussion of Israel and Palestine. The modern discussion says specifically there are immediate and frequent examples of Israeli soldiers outright murdering Palestinian civilians. A single example from 20 years ago that resulted in a full investigation and trial is none of these.

As for the other example:

The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) said troops had opened fire near the village of Nabi Saleh after Palestinian gunmen fired shots towards a guardpost. Tamimi told reporters there had been no other gunfire, and that he had just buckled up his son in order to drive to an uncle’s house when their car was shot at.

A man who had every reason to lie said there had been no other gunfire. Had there been, it absolves the IDF. They would still be wrong to shoot the car, but they shot it because they were under fire and understandably assumed the worst. It's a casualty of war, it happens, it's not wanton murder. And to not make you think I take the IDF at their word, I never do, but they at least check. That article mentions the case of Shireen Abu Akleh, where the IDF admitted one of their soldiers fired at her. How many times has any Palestinian organization admitted a group they first claimed as civilians murdered by the IDF were in fact militants killed fairly? Has it happened a single time ever? If it hasn't, it's not because they've never lied about it.

That's the problem with articles, journalists wrote them. The writer of the second article is a person who is specifically motivated to defend Palestine and criticize Israel. I can't believe them, categorically, and again by the way, same for Haaretz or whatever Israel-favoring publications, I presume every sentence as untrue. This is why I ask for video.

What I am asking for is clear video evidence from the current Gaza War of a civilian being murdered. That they are objectively a civilian, so objectively civilian circumstances (Ideally, anyway, right now can't be held as a standard in Palestine) so a woman who could not possibly be concealing explosives or else couldn't be considered as in a place where that's a reasonable fear, or a child who can on-sight be determined as not carrying explosives--as this discussion can't be held faithfully without acknowledging one side employs women and children as suicide bombers--and that they are then clearly singularly targeted and shot. Ian Carroll, who I've liked clips by him, talks about it, Darryl Cooper, same, talks about it, IDF snipers wantonly dropping civilians, and it is those videos I have never seen, those videos I have looked again and again to find, and all I can ever get is people talking about the supposed incidents, not actually showing them. I don't want to watch them, but I need to know the truth more than I need to avoid the heartsickness from seeing the horror I already know is so much in this world.

What about the protests prior to the Gaza war where they gunned down a bunch of protestors from the other side of a fence?

https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2019/02/no-justification-israel-shoot-protesters-live-ammunition

That should be a higher margin of 'israelis bad' since there was no major conflict going on at that time. I appreciate that civilians die in wartime. But we are approaching Tiananmen square level territory, just without the tanks or 'occupying a key area right outside of govt building' bit. And nobody outside the pro-Palestine people in the West seem to have ever heard of this, it allows a strange narrative of 'oh the Palestinians just woke up one day and decided to zerg-rush israel in the october 7 attacks' to emerge. If you shoot the protestors, it's going to weaken the 'peace' element. People are going to get grievances and be hateful when you shoot them.

More than 6,000 unarmed demonstrators were shot by military snipers, week after week at the protest sites by the separation fence.

The Commission investigated every killing at the designated demonstration sites by the Gaza separation fence on official protest days. The investigation covered the period from the start of the protests until 31 December 2018. 189 Palestinians were killed during the demonstrations inside this period. The Commission found that Israeli Security Forces killed 183 of these protesters with live ammunition. Thirty-five of these fatalities were children, while three were clearly marked paramedics, and two were clearly marked journalists.

At the demonstration site in El Bureij:

 Mohammad Obeid (24) Mohammad was a footballer. At approximately 9 a.m., Israeli forces shot him with a single bullet in both legs while he was walking alone approximately 150 m from the separation fence. His injuries ended his football career.

 Schoolboy (16) Israeli forces shot a schoolboy in the face as he distributed sandwiches to demonstrators, 300 m from the separation fence. His hearing is now permanently impaired.

It goes on and on and on... The Israeli military is, understandably, quite cruel and hateful of the Palestinians.

The event mentioned here is the 20-month long Great March of Return.

"Protestors" accepts framing and implies them as the righteous party. Week after week these groups showed up to "demonstrate" and week after week people there got shot and killed. At a certain point it's no longer "protesting," if it ever was, it's about optics, and if it's about optics, well -- TPOASIWID and the purpose of the Friday "protests" was to produce dead Palestinians.

"Gunned down" evokes imagery of incidents of massed concentrated fire at civilians, and that isn't right either. Across those 20 months, Israeli soldiers, I think almost all snipers did fire on Palestinians, totaling 9,204 injured and 223 killed. 46 are listed as "children" but the citation is "minors under the age of 18."

The one claimed definite child was this:

An eight-month-old child, Leila al-Ghandour was widely reported, following an initial statement by the Gaza Health ministry, to have been a victim of tear-gas at the border. The following day, the Gaza Health Ministry announced that it was not certain of the cause of death and two weeks later struck her name off the official list of people killed during the protests. In a court case against a Fatah al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades militant, who had been captured on the border, the indictment stated that man in question was a relative of the deceased's parents, and had stated the latter had been paid by Yahya Sinwar, the head of Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades in Gaza, about US$2,200 to report to the media that she had died of tear gas inhalation rather than from a pre-existing medical condition.

But even if this had been true, that a baby had died from tear gas inhalation, it wouldn't have been the IDF's fault someone brought a baby.

You will also find this recurrent. Any Palestinian aged 17 years, 364 days or younger is counted as a child. Children can use guns and toss Molotovs. 16-year-olds are not children and if one throws a Molotov at a soldier, whatever they get is what they deserve.

According to the Commission’s data analysis, the Israeli Security Forces injured 6,106 Palestinians with live ammunition at the protest sites during this period.

6,106 opportunities for video, or above, 9,204 total. Where the fuck is it? The absence is deafening. I am told to accept that thousands were unjustly shot and there isn't one single video? Not one single person over 20 months of "protest" thought "I should record this." Why would I accept this? I bet there is video, only it captures what I describe. A Palestinian tossing a Molotov or trying to breach the fence and getting their leg shot off or hit in the gut or groin or chest on a pass-through tumble from a kneecap.

As for that kneecapping, here's an interestingly candid article from Haaretz:

Eden says he broke the “knee record” in the demonstration that took place on the day the new U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem was inaugurated, on May 14, 2018. He did it jointly: Snipers usually work in pairs – together with a locator, who is also a sniper by training, and whose task is to give his partner precise data (distance from the target, wind direction, etc.).

Eden: “On that day, our pair had the largest number of hits, 42 in all. My locator wasn’t supposed to shoot, but I gave him a break, because we were getting close to the end of our stint, and he didn’t have knees. In the end you want to leave with the feeling that you did something, that you weren’t a sniper during exercises only. So, after I had a few hits, I suggested to him that we switch. He got around 28 knees there, I’d say.”

The sniper shot 42 people in one day, his partner 28. They're boasting or all but about shooting 70 people. I looked for video of this and found one: https://x.com/vic2pal/status/981095851010469888

Gunshot, he instantly falls, couple frames of the wound but it's not graphic. I think you'd have to know it's a gunshot wound to even make sense of it. (And of course you can't actually tell what's going on around him.)

This team in one day produced themselves 70 opportunities for video. Again, boasting or all but, "Yeah sometimes we hit people behind our targets. Bummer." Where's the video? We do know this happened, since both sides say it did. 70 opportunities from one team in one day for video of a bad shot.

Nothing.

From 2015, if something has supposedly happened more than 10,000 times and there isn't video of it, the simplest and only rational explanation is that it didn't happen. The excessively compassionate, I understand how their brains turn off, they just aren't the sort of people who can think past suffering, and that's often good. The inadequately cynical, who talk about how "you think you hate journalists enough but you don't," how much lefties lie, how the crusades were justified and Islam is shit and how much Muslims rape and marry their own cousins, how much human rights organizations are just masks for USAID State Department globohomo/lefty sinecures/looting public coffers, and how the UN is one giant fraud at best or Bilderberg NWO fronting at worst, to have their brains turn off on all of those things they loudly hate because of the word "Jew" is just fucking funny.

But, not an argument, and I'm not saying you're either of these. I'm only saying you should consider if you reached your position from pure reason as applied to evidence, or if you reached it because you read words that aligned with how you already saw things. That you felt convinced by those words when really you were flattered, and you think I might also be convinced. Words won't convince me, I am adequately cynical, I know both sides are nothing but liars, and that's why I want video.

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I think your demand is hard to meet simply because gore videos like this are not easily searchable. But that fact seems rather irrelevant to the question of whether or not these killings are happening. Unless the position is that these mainstream media outlets and human rights groups are lying about these deaths and the videos they allege to have of the events.

It's fair to argue they may not be easily searchable, they shouldn't be, but I'm not only saying I can't find them, I'm also saying I've never seen them in the wild, and I have every reason to think I would have. Darryl Cooper has specifically claimed, on X or Rogan or Tucker, that he has seen multiple videos of Palestinians being shot by snipers. He's former military, he knows people, it could be he's long had access to special channels, but that's not a satisfactory answer as it requires explaining why none have ever "breached containment."

Video is absolutely relevant. You understand this, a graphic video of a civilian murdered, such as a child being shot, would be an unparalleled optics victory for Palestine. I could believe most Palestinians would refuse to use so terrible a death even with what they would gain, but there are Palestinians who wouldn't refuse. Not even cynically, the virtuous who believe the world should know the truth and they show it in hope of preventing future deaths. It would mean convincing me and anyone else who would find video conclusive where words aren't.

My position is simple. Israelis are liars, Palestinians are liars, human rights organizations are liars, journalists are liars. There is total incentive to lie about everything by everyone involved. Israel to cover their ass, Palestine to maintain their existentially-required image of being the victim, orgs to justify their continued work or because they're aligned with Palestine, and journalists because they're journalists.

Palestine, actually, is waging effective fifth-generation warfare, their action is the optics of victimhood. Every civilian death is an attack, every civilian massacre is a major maneuver. This is the case regardless of the truth of their claims, as in if everything they claim is true and they aren't trying to do optics they just get them from their being attacked, it's the case as an emergent property. It's how they have to fight, it's all they have against an actual military. But because it's how they fight, it's exactly how they would lie.

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The US reneged on this when Trump got into office, Trump being heavily backed by Israeli lobbyists who got what they were paying for.

As if Trump needed lobbying to pull out of his predecessor's deal or the Republicans hadn't spent the previous year tarnishing it... (Yes, Iran sponsors terrorists and a reduction in sanctions would have made them more able to do so; no, that doesn't mean that the deal was a net negative, unless you have high confidence the nuclear provisions would have been ineffective. However, Trump may have genuinely thought that, in addition to the other political motivations.)

They've been six months away from nukes for 30 years now, according to Israeli intelligence. How is this line of argument evergreen?

It's possible Iran has strategically maintained all-but-last-n-steps capability, so as to be next-best-thing to a nuclear threat, without the political problems (not just external - their theocracy is opposed) outright nuclear capability would bring.

Yes, Iran sponsors terrorists and a reduction in sanctions would have made them more able to do so

Oh no, Iran sponsors terrorists? How awful, I'm sure the US didn't literally hand out ground to ground anti-tank missiles to "the good kind of terrorists" in Syria. Terrorism? Really? Is anyone left in 2025 who gives any weight these words?

Where is the outrage over all the Palestinians who get sodomized or tortured in Israeli prisons?

I've seen this claim made dozens of times in the past few months, and never with a source.

https://www.hrw.org/report/2021/04/27/threshold-crossed/israeli-authorities-and-crimes-apartheid-and-persecution#1043

Ctrl-f torture.

Thank you.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/aug/05/palestinian-prisoners-describe-widespread-abuse-in-israels-jails

Was very easy to find.

Considering that Israel has denied the Red Cross visitation to their prisons post Oct 7 it shouldn't be a surprise that there are some sordid things going on.

Firas Hassan, a 50-year-old youth ministry worker from Bethlehem, was arrested under an administrative detention order in 2022. Conditions then were acceptable, he told the Guardian: there were hot showers, decent food, time outside in the yard, and about six prisoners to a cell, each with his own bunk.

In early 2023, Ben-Gvir was appointed the minister in charge of prisons. He immediately set about getting rid of what he called “perks” for Palestinian inmates, such as fresh bread, and limiting shower times to four minutes.

But those changes were nothing compared to what happened after 7 October, Hassan said. “There was respect before. But after 7 October I was sure I was going to die there. I lost all hope.”

Hassan described conditions common to many of the interviews. He said he and his cellmates – up to 20 people in the same cell designed for seven – were beaten, sometimes several times a day. He said one injured cellmate claimed to him through tears after a particularly brutal incident in November that guards had raped him with a baton.

With little water and no washing facilities or clean clothes, conditions quickly became extremely unsanitary. Food for the entire room consisted of a piece of meat, a cup of cheese, half a tomato and half a cucumber in the morning, and about five spoonfuls of uncooked rice per person for dinner. There was one 2-litre bottle of water for the whole room to share.

“The guards told me, we are giving you enough to keep you alive, but if it was up to us we will let you starve,” he said. On his release without charge in April, Hassan had lost 22kg in weight.

Hassan also heard the screams of 38-year-old Thaer Abu Asab, who was allegedly beaten to death in the cell next door after refusing to bow his head to guards.

Another witness, Mousa Aasi, 58, from Ramallah governorate, told the Guardian that after the beating, Asab was dragged into the courtyard in view of all the inmates. “They said he died in hospital later, but I think he was already dead,” he said.

Thank you.

Fake history. The Six-Day War was started by Israel and they were the aggressor in Suez.

This is, at the very least, debatable. Egypt massed troops on the border and was making threats (and closed the Straits of Tiran after Israel said they would consider this an act of war). Whether Nasser was just saber-rattling for appearances, or really meant to attack Israel we may never know, but if you mass troops on the border of a hostile neighbor and talk about how you're going to finish the job you failed to do last war, you should not be surprised if your neighbor decides to take you seriously.

The guerilla tactics used in Israel's early days were not nice. Nor is the ongoing occupation. Israelis and Arabs are certainly both guilty of war crimes. That said, you seem like most dedicated Israel-haters to take every Hamas PR release at face value while playing down Palestinian atrocities. Israel might not have a lot of charity left for Palestinians, but they'd still take even a disadvantageous deal if they actually believed it would lead to peace. (Obviously, the likelihood of this now is very close to zero.)

Israel isn't pure good facing pure evil. Israel has as much blood on their hands as every other country, and more than most, but they're facing people who are even worse. Sorry, that's the truth, and I have sympathy for Palestinians, but both their government (what there is of it) and, frankly, their culture, is terrible. Even other Arabs hate Palestinians and couldn't care less about dead Palestinian children except as props to make Israel look bad.

Maybe we should just abandon Israel and let them sink or swim on their own. I'd actually be okay with that, as long as there are no crocodile tears when Israel says "Fine, we'll show you what a genocide actually looks like."

Maybe we should just abandon Israel and let them sink or swim on their own. I'd actually be okay with that, as long as there are no crocodile tears when Israel says "Fine, we'll show you what a genocide actually looks like."

Foreign intervention on behalf of local proxies seems weighted towards Israel only because Israel seems to have the best ROI for stability generation. Supporting Iran lead to its revolution, supporting Iraq lead to the Gulf War, etc etc etc. Despite that, CENTCOM still has to swing its dick to shower 'regional support' jizz to thirsty Saudis and the Gulf States because without that the whole region goes even further to hell. Its a shit pot with shitty players that will blow up the casino if they aren't bankrolled by a big daddy somewhere, and US/West either plays big daddy or China gets more notches in its Belt (and road). Israel just happens to be the least shit player in a table full of self destructive retards (including Israel). Besides, foreign intervention restrains more than enables. Were it not for foreign intervention Israel would have had parades through Cairo and Damascus in 73, if not 67, and effective control of the Suez in 50whatever. Israel actually produces shit that makes sanctioning it ineffective, just like how Russia and even Iran sanctions don't even matter. If Israel truly had a free hand, they'd force all the Gazans to be Egyptian citizens and West Bank to be Jordanians, like the Palestinians Territories were before the Egyptians and Jordanians got sick of their shit. Forced displacement is nothing foreign to the middle east, and the last great Palestinian exodus was the Kuwaitis kicking out 400k Palestinians. Its well known that no one gives a single shit about 130k Jews expelled from Iraq back in the 1950s, and we can see no one gives a shit about Arabs kicking out other Arabs. Any foreign intervention on behalf of Jews is conducted out of necessity to keep a tenuous balance beyond the Middle East in place, not out of love for the Jews.

Some people think "self-defense" can only begin once you already got punched, or stabbed, or shot. If somebody takes out a gun, aims at you, shouts "I'm going to kill you, motherfucker!", and tries to press the trigger, but you're quicker on the draw and shoot first - you're the "aggressor". Or at least they pretend to think so when Israel is concerned. Of course, there are also plain old antisemites for which Israel is bad in any case, and they are just need to find the reason why.

Some people think "self-defense" can only begin once you already got punched, or stabbed, or shot.

You have a very appropriate username for that. Having Han shoot first or second was a deliberate choice that Lucas famously went back on.

If a little child tells you, "When I grow up, I will kill you", when are you allowed to kill him in self-defense? When he says that? When he starts learning about guns and toxins and explosives? When he makes his first unexpected attempt on your life? When he reaches the age of criminal responsibility?

If a little child tells you, "When I grow up, I will kill you", when are you allowed to kill him in self-defense?

There are a lot of caselaw considering the question of imminent danger.

The case here though is more like the kid grew up, tried to kill you many times, with guns, toxins and explosives, and this time showed up at your door with some friends, all wielding firearms and shouting "we will finish the job this time!".

Are we still talking about Palestine?

Yes. Palestinian children, to be precise.

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Actually what’s worse is that because of this constant Israel = Bad rhetoric, there’s actually less incentive to not go for broke. Gaza was “genocide” on Day 1. Exactly what does Israel get for not doing exactly that — other than more attacks? Why not simply raze everything and put up Israeli 7-11s where Gaza and the West Bank are now, rather than waiting for the next one? Why not settle Judea? Why not go crazy if you’re crazy anyway.

If everything is Genocide, nothing is Genocide. The cooler heads currently in power in Egypt and Jordan are the ones imploring Israel to not go forth with the mass exodus, because Egypt and Jordan are even less ready to deal with an eternally hostile population than the Israelis are. Egypt just kicked out several hundred 'peace activists' that wanted to go show their support for Gaza by marching into Rafah, and the entire world was just reminded that Egypts border wall with Gaza is even more intense than Israels. The neat new trick is that these border walls are there for Palestines benefit because 'if they were allowed to leave then the Palestinian cause would be extinguished', and I for one REALLY hope this logic takes full root everywhere because then every single asylum seeker will be denied on compassionate grounds. No, little Aylan, you must stay in shitholestan to keep the dream of the PKK alive.

Gaza was “genocide” on Day 1. Exactly what does Israel get for not doing exactly that...

Somewhere here is a good observation about the importance of escalation dominance in the domain of information warfare.

Because they're a tiny, weak country pretending to be a major power. 10 million people, 7 million of them Jews, cannot sustain significant long-term military capacity against even low-medium strength foes if they lose the support of the US. Israel's Gaza campaign is dependent upon US munitions and US support. They aren't even able to raze Gaza without US munitions 'forward-based' in Israel, de facto there for them to use.

US sanctions? They're done. Israel's high-tech economy goes straight to zero and the country disintegrates. How do you sanction-proof with such a small country? F-35s probably wouldn't last 6 months without the gigantic global supply chain of parts.

Much of this comment smacks of US centrism rather than contempt of Israel, though Israel certainly is consistently sneered at by everyone. Theres this weird fiction that the USA is God, that the USA simply flexes and all submit before its might, and that flexing is the only reason Israel is able to exist. It ignores the USA flexing on behalf of Egypt and Saudi Arabia and Qatar and UAE and literally any asshole anywhere in the world that has positional relevance against US strategic threats.

Israel is, unfortunately, not merely a puppeteer that will be helpless once the glorious USA has cut off its strings and unshackled itself to this meddlesome burden of irrelevance. Sanctions don't work if someone has useful shit in the first place, as we see with Iran and USA still able to import all manner of European technologies never mind random Asian crap. Israel has a domestic tech base and production capacity that can be spun up irritatingly quickly, and the entirely of Gaza is within dumb artillery range, a capability that Israel can restart with little effort given that they actually manufacture their small arms themselves and are a net exporter of smart arms.

There is this worldview that the great act and the weak suffer as they must, and the defiance of the weak is merely due to the restraint of the great. Russia conducts itself in this way, as if their dominance is assured and their stumbling in Ukraine is an act of deliberately considered mercy on their part. And as Russia acts, so too does this current iteration of USA in its trade wars, where the first order logic is 'US trade is critical for all other economies, so they will all rush to surrender to our threats'. Its a nice comforting logic that means the weak inferiors are about to collapse immediately and all that must be done is to wake up and simply flick the switch to manifest reality. Flicking the switch to turn off Israel will see that country drowned in its own iniquities, but the bright light from Israel is less likely to be its burning and more the activation of its own backups.

Israel has a domestic tech base and production capacity

No, they don't. China has a domestic tech base and production capacity. Russia has production capacity. Israel just produces a few high-end pieces in a giant web of European and American IP and supply chains. Intel has a fab in Israel, running on Dutch lithography equipment, itself made from German lenses...

Does Israel produce all of the umpteen million parts needed for aircraft and guided missiles? No. They import. They're heavily reliant on imported steel! There's no guns or shells or machine tools without steel. They have zero oil production, only natural gas. They're heavily reliant on imported energy. They're surely heavily reliant on all kinds of key industrial infrastructure (transformers, large turbines, construction vehicles).

If Western sanctions fall on Israel, the country disintegrates immediately since it's just impossible to sustain an advanced, high-tech economy at their low level of scale. America first is an entirely separate issue. Russia and America can afford to scorn the world to a certain extent, they're actually big countries. Size matters a lot. The US can't bully China or Russia or Europe with assured success but it can wipe the floor with Israel economically.

Iran isn't a specialized high-tech economy, they're sanctions-proofed and have a much sounder, more developed foundation in their industrial base. Iran actually is energy-secure and a net energy exporter. Iran is the 10th biggest steel producer, Israel isn't even on the list.

Strong Abbas Araghchi vibes here.

10 million people, 7 million of them Jews, cannot sustain significant long-term military capacity against even low-medium strength foes if they lose the support of the US

Given that most of their neighbors want them dead and gone, and not due to generic geopolitical tensions, that just sounds like withdrawing US support will put them in a position where their only hope for survival is to establish regional supremacy as quickly and forcefully as possible, since they really can't sustain a long-term war against a coalition. Very unstable, certainly, but better than slowly and inevitably being ground into the ocean.

They even stole their nukes from us. They're the definition of a parasite.

Probably because the liberal Democrat west still generally supports Israel, at least in most countries, and if they went full genocidal they’d lose the ability to ever play the holocaust/anti semitism card ever again (which still holds some cache, at least among the old guard in western institutions)

Rather, the people in the west are generally negative to Israel. Even Americans are net negative to Israel. Western politicians go against the will of the people and cuck endlessly to Israel regardless of what Israel does because of Israel's extreme influence. This becomes a problem when the voters are not onboard, yet they have to officially worship Likud.

If I be a dog, beware my fangs.

Well, I'd peg Iran as a good case of "bad guys who are in the right". I don't have much love left for the Islamic theocracy they are running and think there are many ways in which they deny human flourishing for no good reason at all, but also it seems clear to me that they have more of a popular mandate to run the country than anyone else does, and in particular they came to power as a sort of last-resort response to all sorts of alternative attempts of running Iran were tried and turned out to be more unjust.

As for Israel Bad, let me present an abbreviated case that Israel is in fact Bad. Really, in my estimation and value system, it is hard to think of a state entity that is more unambiguously evil: they stole land to build a murderous ethnostate (the last part already being bad in itself, if you subscribe to a certain brand of humanism); take, take and take from even their so-called friends while repaying the friendship with perfidy and treason, and use their extensive influence network to gaslight the friends into not even being able to coherently respond to said perfidy; and, worst of all, they come to be among the worst purveyors of hypocrisy and double standards anywhere to cover up for their actions, which I see as an attack on the idea of standards and rules, and civilisation built upon it, itself. If an Arab kills one random Israeli, they tell us, this is an atrocity of the highest order, retroactively justifying every abuse that not only this Arab but the grandfather of his cousin thrice removed was subjected to; if an Israeli kills a hundred random Arabs, this is maybe a little excessive and you really wish they would exercise restraint but of course their right to defend themselves should not be questioned? Those hundred probably included a lot of people who felt vaguely positively about the Arab who killed one Israeli before? Even their very founding myth does this - their target demographic suffered the great injustice of being murdered and expelled for the sake of someone else's ethnostate, so they will gloriously murder and expel an entirely unrelated people to get their ethnostate. The median Israeli, furthermore, seems about as complicit in this as any citizen can be complicit in the actions of their country - few other countries are as affluent, polyglot and well-connected, and I figure any Israeli who wanted to leave would be welcomed with open arms in most of the Western world. Certainly, if I were Israeli, I hope I would have the integrity to either leave or else accept any retribution that comes my way with the serenity of a repentant murderer on death row.

I think having the worst version of their standards applied to themselves is the most appropriate punishment for purveyors of double standards. Israel contends that 55k dead Palestinians (80% civilians) is a just response to 1.2k dead Israelis (68% civilians) (Wikipedia figures). If against all odds Iran came through and successfully applied the same ratio to them, I would not think the world became a better* place, but it would be hard to shake the feeling that it became a more just one, in the ruat caelum way.

*I do not reject the argument that net suffering even for Arabs in Israel (let alone net disutility for its Imperial Citizens) is lower than net suffering for Arabs in self-governed countries, but find it irrelevant. I wish for people to have the right to be governed by their own choice and consent, including the right to be governed badly.

Firstly I will say I don't have a camel in this race because I don't care much what two strangers do to each other. I don't think Israel is Good but its tough to convince me they're Bad:

It seems to boil down to: (1) they're bad allies to the US; (2) they treat their enemies as enemies. Now I will grant you (1), since you're probably right and I don't care either way. But I'd like to push back on (2).

So Israel is Bad for valuing one citizen over a hundred Arabs. Does Gaza value the life of a Jew equally to one of its citizens? Does Iran? I haven't researched what Gazans and Iranians think of Jews, or read anything their governments say about various attacks and grievances. I have however seen some Gazan propaganda television teaching their kids to hate Jews, so I know where I'd put my money.

Finally, I agree with you that Iran and Palestine are entitled to take their revenge on Israel. It seems Israel already thinks their enemies want that anyways. So, I also don't begrudge Israel turning their neighbors into glass. Actually I'm quite impressed with their restraint.

Israelis liquidated entire vilages, women children and all during the Nakba. They would deserve everything that's coming to them, were this universe even slightly just.

The Nakba resulted from a war the Arabs started, and it was a tea party compared to the displacement and massacres accompanying the partition of India and Pakistan. Somehow we manage not to deplore those states for it, seven decades on.

valuing one citizen over a hundred Arabs

One data point is Shalit, for whom Nethanyahu paid with 1027 Arabs in 2011. Of course, this was a terrible decision on Israel's part: releasing 280 terrorists serving life sentences will have expected costs much higher than a single Israeli life. But likely Netanyahu needed a cheap political win at the time or something.

With all the hostages taken on Oct-7, the market value of Israelis has really crumbled to the point where 200 Arabs are exchanged for for four female IDF soldiers.

(Arguably, the most valuable contribution an IDF soldier could ever hope to make to Israel's wars is to suicide when captured. Most soldiers can never hope to personally neutralize 100 enemies, but a captured soldier can prevent 100 enemies from being un-neutralized.)

(Arguably, the most valuable contribution an IDF soldier could ever hope to make to Israel's wars is to suicide when captured. Most soldiers can never hope to personally neutralize 100 enemies, but a captured soldier can prevent 100 enemies from being un-neutralized.)

This is precisely the rationale behind the so-called Hannibal Directive

Palestinians appear to value a dead Israeli more than the lives of multiple Palestinians.

I would care significantly less what they did if I weren't forced to be complicit in it, by way of taxes if nothing else (which also forces me to in fact be okay with some amount of being blown up by Arab terrorists in revenge, because per my own morality I do deserve it); but yes, I do in fact think that a 1:100 valuation, especially from a capable state, is an unacceptable defection against peaceful modernity as I envision it. In my ideal world, every state brazenly implementing such a value function in favour of its own citizens ought to be ganged up on by everyone else, until only countries that assign reasonable value even to foreigners remain. ((1) I'm not sure what sort of ratio I'm okay with; (2) I'm happy if all of Israel's enemies are next, should they prove that they still have such a preference function after Israel has been obliterated. Israel at least has provided circumstantial evidence that their relative valuation is not confined to a handful of countries.) Think of Russia/Ukraine as the usual comparison case - in the case of those two countries, neither actually dares to "treat their enemies as enemies" in the Israeli fashion, because they know full well that being the first to do so would invite massive Western retribution (if Russia does it) or at least a nearly as fatal downturn in Western support (if Ukraine does).

As for (1), it's not just the US. (I'm not American! The USS Liberty episode was just the starkest display of cuckoldry I could think of, and probably more compelling to our American majority.)

In my ideal world, every state brazenly implementing such a value function in favour of its own citizens ought to be ganged up on by everyone else, until only countries that assign reasonable value even to foreigners remain

Is whats good for the goose good for the gander? The Arab states CONSISTENTLY display and act on their desire to destroy their proximate enemies, be it the neighbor or village or country or cousin. Israel isn't even the most devastating conflict each of their antagonists engaged in, with Egypt intervening in Yemen to lose more troops than the Yom Kippur War and Syria losing.... well, literally everything. Even their domestic conduct and respect for foreigners leaves much to be desired, as anyone who has ever set foot in any of those countries can attest. Try going for Haj if you're not of superior Arab or acceptable White blood, see how they treat you. If you put your value function as 'fuck these constantly defecting assholes', we have EXISTING proof of such actions being conducted ad nauseum. I maintain that the best path for the Israelis is to just buy out Carnival Cruises and go on a nationwide 4 year booze cruise, and let the region implode upon itself.

In general yes, and with the Saudis in particular I actually think they are long overdue for a drubbing on very similar grounds to Israel. (Since Saudi Arabia is not even remotely democratic, though, I think the moral case that its civilians deserve it is far weaker!) That being said, I think of the obligation to be a "good citizen" among the nations to only really come into full force after a certain threshold of national capability is surpassed - tasers and rubber bullets are appropriate for antisocial adults running wild, not antisocial children throwing a temper tantrum, with the latter being more appropriately subjected to gentler and more patronising modes of reeducation. If some random minnow on the order of Syria is impotently mouthing off against its neighbours, what they need is a stern talking-to and maybe a review if at some point it looks like they might be acquiring the capacity to making good on those threats.

Libya was run by a clown moron that looked like a parody of what a dictator should be. He was also sponsoring terrorist attacks that managed to actually kill a sizable number of people, in addition to just enriching many terrorists groups that were not competent enough to achieve their goals. The reality is that terrorism has a fairly low capability bar to clear, and maintaining the discipline of agents until a target of opportunity arises is the largest problem. Even after Gadafi died Libya still hosted terrorist training camps that resulted in the manchester bombing, killing dozens of actual children - prepubescent little girls not 17 year old bearded boys - to no response from the UK authorities. Perhaps the irritating Syrian minnow should not be brushed off as irrelevant just because you wish to focus energies on preferred aggressors. Thats not very aladeen of you if you only aladeen the aladeen aladeen.

Does Gaza value the life of a Jew equally to one of its citizens?

Probably, if you consider absolute value. They'd definitely accept more than one Gazan killed in exchange for killing a Jew.

The "You also value my property more than your life" meme but its Israel aiming a missile reading "You also value my citizens more than your own"

It's probably not something I should make a habit of, but I feel compelled to give some support to Israel here. Israel didn't steal any land any more than anyone else won or lost land before and after World War II, but the difference is the reaction to them has been way crazier because they planted themselves in the middle of a sea of extremists based around a nucleus of religious sites (geez, how many holy sites are Muslims entitled to? The Jews just have a few right there, right?). Much blood has been spilled because there was no postwar liberal consensus in the Middle East as there was in Europe. The postwar liberal consensus had to be created by Israel basically all by itself, with limited success, as the situation in Gaza shows. Israel was making some serious progress on a two-state thing, but that whole deal was killed by rampant terrorist attacks, and due to these sustained attacks, the Palestinians have never been farther from their own state. That's never what they wanted, anyway; they want everything, river to the sea.

Israelis are considered more valued by both sides. You can see this based on the prisoner exchanges between Hamas and Israel. Always, Israel releases hundreds or thousands of militants in exchange for a handful of their own soldiers or civilian hostages. Hamas is glad to accept these deals that bear the implication that one Israeli is worth thousands of Gazans, so I can't blame anyone for believing it's true. But disproportionate casualties have always been acceptable in war, which is what this is. Those civilian to militant casualty ratios are not even out of the ordinary for war. Massive assaults on civilians have also always been a decent cause for war, especially ones committed by the literal government of a territory.

If Israel is an ethnostate (it probably is), it's not a very good one. Do you think that Nazi Germany would accept having a populace composed of 20% Jews?

Normally, I find the idea of actual genocide to be pretty terrible. Ethnic groups and DNA and culture are fascinating to me, and to see something like that die entirely is a huge bummer. Gaza tests this value of mine. Never has a people been more problematic than them and never has a people been more determined to reject their lot in life. Basically their entire purpose nowadays is to take back every square inch of Israel, no matter how impossible that is, no matter how many people on their own side and on the enemy side are killed. Before the 20th century, they absolutely would never have been tolerated. They would have been, at the very least, brutally slapped around until a huge percentage of the population was dead and the rest was too weak and scared to retaliate. If this is not done, this conflict will likely never end. Even forcibly moving every Gazan out of the area probably would not fix the problem, because they are extremely intent on getting their territory back, and distance does not stop the likes of the Houthis and the Iranians either.

I am a little fascinated by the right wingers who do not like Israel. For them, it's generally a much more obvious case of antisemitism than it is for left wingers. My father introduced me to the fact that antisemitism is really, really old in Europe. For Christians, it makes a lot of sense; they were a very radically different group that lived in close proximity to them, considered sinners, forced into a universally disliked profession as bankers, and there is some basis for the idea that they killed Christ and called down a blood curse upon themselves. This, plus random grievances accumulated throughout the centuries just from tallying up every negative incident they could find. For the non-religious, I do not know why they would dislike Jews in particular. My best guess is conspiracy reasons related to Hollywood or perhaps certain Holocaust deniers. If anyone here is agnostic or atheist or otherwise not a Christian, and really doesn't like Jews, please let me know your reasons. I'm interested, scientifically. My father really liked Jews before his, uh, awakening, and he hated Muslims. Now he basically loves Gazans and hates Jews, while still mostly hating Muslims in Europe.

Jews are politically minorities in a way that does not exactly endear them to the far right.

Why so many secular far right wingers(and in middle eastern conflicts, when forced to have an opinion, I simply support whatever side is better for local Christians. Ethnoreligious prejudices are how the locals make their decisions, after all) hate Israel I can't say- it is after all Jews being somewhere else.

Are you Arab? If not, how is supporting your perceived interests of Arab Christians comparable to "ethnoreligious prejudices?"

Can you be more specific about which "secular far right wingers" you think want "Jews being somewhere else?" Does supporting the goals of the "Jewish Lobby" result in American Jews emigrating or reduce the number of foreign Jews immigrating?

It's probably not something I should make a habit of, but I feel compelled to give some support to Israel here. Israel didn't steal any land any more than anyone else won or lost land before and after World War II

The difference is that WWII land loss mostly affected belligerents, who had legitimate beefs going back centuries. Israel was built at the expense of Arab villagers who didn't really do anything to anybody. If you get injured in a mass brawl, you can't just go on to maul a random bystander and excuse yourself by saying that everyone in the mass brawl you just came out of suffered injuries.

If Israel is an ethnostate (it probably is), it's not a very good one. Do you think that Nazi Germany would accept having a populace composed of 20% Jews?

I mean, they are clearly working on it. South Africa, generally recognised as pretty evil, always was minority-European.

Even forcibly moving every Gazan out of the area probably would not fix the problem, because they are extremely intent on getting their territory back, and distance does not stop the likes of the Houthis and the Iranians either.

Would it fix the problem on the Israeli side? They have already also grabbed parts of Lebanon (more, recently); how do we figure there would be a real limit to their quest for Lebensraum?

I mean, they are clearly working on it. South Africa, generally recognised as pretty evil, always was minority-European.

South Africa never was ethnonationalist project. Vast demographic stratum of not-coethnics is incompatible (with ethnonationalist ethnostate). Apartheid era South Africa was an attempt at ethnosupremacist caste society. Some similarities with multicultural empires (but without the position, resources and stature of empire) or American South. Agreed it was pretty evil, though, but accusations should be kept correct and precise. The post-apartheid "Kill the Boer" South Africa may be catching up on the relative evil.

It's also not super clear Israelis are "working on it", no matter is "it" ethnostate or South Africa. Israel seems content with 20% Israeli Arab population with civil rights. That attitude may change if the demographic balance ever tips the other way (not unlike how demographics became so contentious topic in Lebanon that no official demographic surveys are conducted), but orthodox Israelis seem to be working on keeping the favorable balance with the 6.6 fertility rate, so perhaps they can keep kicking that can forward until end of time.

Would it fix the problem on the Israeli side? They have already also grabbed parts of Lebanon (more, recently); how do we figure there would be a real limit to their quest for Lebensraum?

Putting my realist glasses on: it's the same as for any other country: none, nobody can figure it out, there is no such limit other than established by tradition of peace. I don't think it as any special perfidiousness of Israel: no country in a habit of making war has had such limit, either, until perhaps they are clearly losing. If you are winning, there will be no shortage of warmongers who want to win some more. Britain never had any limit in enlarging the British empire. Success at defensive war may encourage starting offensive war: Revolutionary France wanted keep the Revolution, then they wanted natural borders at Rhein, and then Napoleon was at the gates of Moscow. In broad strokes, there are only two stable states: mission creep until eventual failure, or no war at all.

I like to bring up Denmark and Sweden: they had a tradition of trying to conquer/reconquer each other for centuries. Then, after Napoleon the military and political landscape changed, they stopped waging war due to circumstances, the circumstances became a habit, and after two centuries today nobody (up to lizardsman's constant) in either country seriously considers ownership of previously contested areas a just casus belli. Unfortunately it is never permanent, the mentality can changed with a concerted propaganda effort in one generation. So, nobody can guarantee limits to war aims, in general and not in this particular case.

Back to topic of Palestine. Until recently, the Palestinians and their supporters have had equal or upper hand at rejecting opportunities to begin the tradition of peace. Predictably, after few decades of that, cycle of war feeding itself and warmonger politicians with maximalist claims, they got what they wanted: there is few Israeli powers-that-be willing to entertain peaceful solutions like two-state. As long as neither side seriously considers peace, I view Israel equally just in waging the war as the opposing side.

Now do I like Israel and their policy of war? Less and less more brutal they become, but it is an untrue claim Israel has always been "unambiguously evil": at every window of opportunity for co-existence that doesn't feed the evil, Palestine and their backers have never took opportunity other than to make opportunity more remote; find more evil ways of fighting war and hurt "random bystanders", and never shown willingness to back away from plan to drive the Israel back to sea.

The difference is that WWII land loss mostly affected belligerents, who had legitimate beefs going back centuries

Not really related to main point, but I think this is bit selective. Israel has existed today longer (77 years since 1947) than "Germany" had existed as a country in 1939. If you count back to Confederation of the Rhine, you get a "beef" beyond 130 years, but you could count Israel starting from Zionist migration to Ottoman Palestine, and that started late 19th century. By standards of beefs going back to centuries, Israel/Palestine has been around long enough.

Not really related to main point, but I think this is bit selective. Israel has existed today longer (77 years since 1947) than "Germany" had existed as a country in 1939. If you count back to Confederation of the Rhine, you get a "beef" beyond 130 years, but you could count Israel starting from Zionist migration to Ottoman Palestine, and that started late 19th century. By standards of beefs going back to centuries, Israel/Palestine has been around long enough.

...yes, and Germany has basically only lost territory nonconsensually since its creation. In terms of lands it controls that were not German in even semi-recent history, at most you could make an argument about a narrow strip it took from Denmark in the very north, and there there was a corresponding longer history of mutual wronging between Denmark and various particular states that were later absorbed into the German fold.

Israel and Palestine are still around, and basically every piece of real estate Israel owns was stolen from ancestors of modern-day Palestinians. In this particular case, it is really hard to buy into the "it was out of their hand for so long, they should get over it already" argument - especially since Israel still continues expropriating and settling more Palestinian land, in brazen defiance of admonitions even from its "friends".

It's also not super clear Israelis are "working on it", no matter is "it" ethnostate or South Africa. Israel seems content with 20% Israeli Arab population with civil rights.

With some civil rights. I have actually been to Israel, and it's impossible to ignore how obviously the Palestinian population is being treated differently - there are villages fenced in by Berlin-style prefab concrete walls everywhere across the countryside, random checkpoints with separate, overflowing queues for them, parts of cities randomly locked off on the basis of some or another Jewish festivity with police filtration points that keep them out completely, etc.; I searched a bit and Amnesty has a much longer list including things that I would not have noticed during my fairly short stay.

So history won’t change. I’m just like waiting for anyone to take a fair honest look at the ME. Israel isn’t perfect, but I think most people are hopelessly naive about just how warlike the Arab world can be. It’s just a bunch of war and honor cultures that are hopelessly aggressive against Jews existing in the region. Iran isn’t France, and Palestinians are not Hopi. Jihad is a major part of the current theological understanding of Islam, and not the internal kind of jihad.

Jordan was just helping defend Israel against Iranian drones. Saudis are doing jack shit to fight Israel and made it illegal to criticise prince Bonesaw in that regard. Arabs are mostly Quislings, actually.

Quisling because they made the devils bargain with the clerics following the grand mosque seizure. The Hashemites should have won over the house of saud, but they overrepresented their position to the colonial powers and could not capitalize on the fall of the ottomans. There is ONE polity that functions exceptionally well in the region on its own merits, and literally everyone ignores them for reasons that baffle me.

All Arab leaders wish to vacation in the West and fund such travels with their receipts from home. Their domestic political situations make reconciliation with the hardliners impossible because islamists rush to fill any political void and their ability to destroy what little influence the Arab nations have is quite astonishing. Left to their own devices, eternal repression and poverty is the only way the leader can keep his neck off a noose, and so they must beg and abase themselves to anyone willing to lend them some technical experts to keep their rigs flowing and the secret police happy.

I had to Google the bonesaw reference. The Khashoggi(?) guy, right? Didn't that blow up just because he was a WaPo writer and because he crossed state lines got chopped up in an embassy? That was one of my earliest noticings about "current thing" programming. Suddenly 10,000,000 reddit threads about some literal who nobody cared about the day before.

Obligatory I don't advocate "fingers first" bonesawings for anyone, but Khashoggi was an Islamist and his political complaints were there not being enough and the correct kind of Islamic rule. And then Americans lamenting this poor "journalist" as though he wasn't an advocate for something completely incompatible with our way of life.

MBS annoys the purple blob for the same reason Trump drives them mad. They flat out refuse to obey the rules people weaker than them have imposed. It is wrong to kill a columnist, but if you really have to, please do it with discrete assassinations. It is so impolite otherwise. Their brains totally lack the capacity to understand how someone could grant women the right to drive and throw the activists that pushed for that in prison. You are enlightened and yet you have no trouble starving yemen to death. That makes you something even worse than a Trump, it makes you Kissinger. I know some people that have worked for him - and what they say - when things go good - they are really good, but if things go bad on a project - they go really bad really fast. I am quite interested if he will be able to pull off a modernized saudi arabia.

"Mr. Bonesaw" is the Prime Minister and Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia; he's not a literal nobody. The Washington Post may not have noticed him until he chopped up a journalist, but he was already Crown Prince at the time.

I think he was referring to Kashoggi

Calling an Iranian an 'Arab' is the fastest way to make him hate you.

This state of affairs reminds me of Kyle Rittenhouse a bit. One guy shooting three other guys? He has to be in the wrong, right? He's so violent. Well, actually, he's only violent because everyone around him is forcing him to be, and they're actually the unreasonable ones. But a lot of people disagree, some of them partly because they don't see the unreasonable ones as so unreasonable.

Who is playing the convicted child molesters in this analogy?

I mean famously the Iranians aren't Arabs. An under appreciated aspect of the whole dynamic is precisely the struggle between the Persian/Shia side and the Arab/Sunni side. Iran has been remarkably resilient to civil conflict in comparison to the rest of the region.

And less famously, not all Iranians are Persians. A good ~30% of Iranians are of Kurdish or Turkic stock, for instance.

I predict more Israel Bad posts everywhere

I'm not sure it'll make a big difference. Months of civilians getting starved, displaced and blown up is quite different from a short, narrowly focused military operation targetting high-ranking members of a regime plus military/nuclear hardware. Israel's actions against Hezbollah didn't elicit much of a negative reaction.

The perception of Israel across the world has been in steady decline for the past 1.5 years. More Israeli warmongering and bombing just makes people dislike them more.

Trump as well is speed running losing long term support. He's alienated the more libertarian voters by attacking Rand Paul and Massie, while having a really bloated pork filled spending bill. He's alienated the isolationists by continuing to provide intel to Ukraine, basically doing the same good cop bad cop routine he just did with Iran to claim neutrality while all the evidence points to continued support. He alienated the moderates and boomers with his poorly planned tariffs, even managed to alienate the pro tariff people by waffling too much on them. If he does the amnesty he was talking about yesterday his base is going to shrivel up. I've never seen this much hate before for Trump on right wing twitter.

Our greatest ally is now putting American lives in danger by publishing that America was complicit in the attack

Trump's truth social posts suggest otherwise.

Wouldn't be surprised if it's the other way around. Trump encourages Netanyahu to go for the attack. The hawks in Israel have been aching to go at it for the last decade. Not only would the US have to complicit, it would need to have given an explicit go ahead.

I'm surprised that the Islamic Republic of Iran has stood for as long as it has. The urban areas don't want the conservatism. Khamenei is at death's door. Succession is unclear. Economy has been doing worse YOY and elite human capital leaves the country on first opportunity.

I know the Persians are a civilized people, so they may not resort to brute force violence. But, 30 years of stability under a continuously deteriorating economy is unheard of.

This is the same question I have: how many sustained humiliations can a government endure and still maintain a sufficient level of popular support? Like you can only blame the perfidy of the Great Satan for so long before the buck eventually stops with you. I’m seeing that Fox News apparently reported that the Israelis managed to dupe the entire leadership of Iran’s air force into a fake meeting before taking them all out. If this sort of thing happened to the American military, I have no idea how the government could continue to stand.

Is the fear of what regime collapse would mean for the country so pervasive that the Persian people will continue to tolerate the status quo? Perhaps I’m just a naïve American, wildly overestimating how much power the people of Iran have to effect a regime change even if they wanted to. Are the traumatic memories of life under the Shah, fifty years ago, really still so fresh that the Iranian people will continue to roll the dice on the Ayatollahs?

Fox News apparently reported that the Israelis managed to dupe the entire leadership of Iran’s air force into a fake meeting before taking them all out

And is this actually true, or is it made up or heavily exaggerated? Fox News is not known for its even-handedness and scrupulous journalistic integrity regarding Israel and Iran.

The start of a major conflict is a breeding ground for misinformation.

The minimum viable level of public support for an autocratic regime willing to take the gloves all the way off is above 0%, but it's probably below 20%, and Iran has enough bribes to go around/genuine believers to keep that minimum percentage for long enough that the current leadership class will die of old age before it rots. Remember ~nobody relevant believed in Communism in the USSR in the eighties either, but a few leaders had to drink themselves to death(and these are fanatical Islamic clerics, so they'll live longer than severe alcoholics) before someone was willing to back down on the project.

Remember ~nobody relevant believed in Communism in the USSR in the eighties either

Interestingly, I've read recently that this common perception was actually the opposite of the truth -- the rabble and many of the mid and low level bureaucrats (i.e. people who were not fully insulated from the real world) no longer believed, but the relevant people in the upper echelons of power still mostly believed, and some quite fervently. Gorby himself did not plan to abandon Communism, he just wanted to release enough pressure to right the ship.

I’d long heard that Kruschev was the last true believer; there might obviously be true believers in important positions after that, but not necessarily in the top spots.

I had also heard that and believed it, but recently I heard a different story. I wish I could remember the source. I want to say it was Substack essay from about 1-2 years ago. I'll see if I can find it.

What makes you think the alternative people reach for is going to be surrender?

What country has responded to urban aerial bombings with surrender? Maybe Japan but that was, you know, and also their armies had been thoroughly trounced at that point. In nearly every case I'm aware of it has stiffened the resolve of the populace and strengthened hardliners.

As long as Israel and their western support bloc shows absolutely no love or friendship for the Persian people, they're not going to throw the Ayatollah out and replace him with western moderates, they'll replace him with a hopefully more competent Ayatollah.

What country has responded to urban aerial bombings with surrender?

The Serbs during the Yugoslav wars come to mind.

As long as Israel and their western support bloc shows absolutely no love or friendship for the Persian people, they're not going to throw the Ayatollah out and replace him with western moderates, they'll replace him with a hopefully more competent Ayatollah.

Possibly, yes, although it’s far from clear to me that a more competent Ayatollah is on offer. Furthermore, I don’t interpret the U.S.’s or Israel’s enmity toward Iran as an expression of enmity toward “the Persian people”; it’s pretty obviously the Islamist revolutionary government that is the issue here. Neither Israel nor the United States have resorted to significant bombing of civilian urban infrastructure within Iran, so far as I am aware. All of the Israeli strikes I’m familiar with have been extremely targeted at Iranian regime leadership, which is in marked contrast to the more indiscriminate bombing campaigns against the Gazans by Israel, or of Iraq and Afghanistan by the United States.

As long as Israel and their western support bloc shows absolutely no love or friendship for the Persian people, they're not going to throw the Ayatollah out and replace him with western moderates, they'll replace him with a hopefully more competent Ayatollah.

They follow Islam. They're not going to throw the Ayatollah out unless he's too liberal for them, which isn't going to happen. Islamic people like Islamic government, the stricter the better.

It’s routine for the somewhat secular elites in those countries fight low-level civil wars against islamists, or at least for the batshit islamists to terrorize the "moderate" islamists. The house of islam has always been the house of war.

It's the batshit Islamists who have the populace behind them, even if the elites are more moderate.

In Iran? The elites over there are genuinely much more religious than the populace.

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How do you square this with the existence of moderate, Western-aligned or neutral Muslim states like Jordan, the U.A.E., Bosnia, and Indonesia?

Jordan and the UAE are monarchies (like the Saudis), so they don't necessarily align to the preferences of the people. I expect Bosnia and Indonesia just haven't reached bottom yet.

Bosnia is just a bunch of Croats and Serbs who converted to avoid taxes. Demographics matter too. Iranians are quite distinct from Arabs as well. Highest IQ people in ME bar the Askenazi ofc.

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I have no idea how the government could continue to stand

The current Israeli government continues to stand despite having apparently missed the invasion force massed on its borders.

If this sort of thing happened to the American military, I have no idea how the government could continue to stand.

Reminds me of claims American Public would never stand for American soldiers being filmed as drones drop grenades on them. I don't believe that for a second, I think you people have about as much capacity as anyone else to forget previous standards. Organically, and when being whipped.

We have managed to lose three wars in living memory and none of the politicians involved suffered electoral consequences.

Do you remember the 2006 and 2008 elections? Republicans lost 14 senate seats and 52 house seats, plus the presidency. While there were certainly other issues bogging down the Republicans, their steadfastness in a losing war was the big issue.

Yes, and when Obama was elected he kept Dubya's SecDef along with most of his top generals, and after Obama we had two straight Dem nominees who voted for the Iraq war in the Senate. We did not see politicians who supported the war suffer consequences en masse.

Are the traumatic memories of life under the Shah, fifty years ago, really still so fresh that the Iranian people will continue to roll the dice on the Ayatollahs?

No, but Islam is that powerful.

I know the Persians are a civilized people, so they may not resort to brute force violence.

LOL. You know, the storming of the US embassy and the ensuing hostage crisis is in fact within living memory.

I mean, is that an example of “brute force violence”? If those American hostages had been captured by, say, ISIS, we would have seen high-definition videos of them being decapitated, set on fire, etc. Instead, the Iranians released all of the hostages unharmed. The only casualties from the entire incident were caused by the American military’s own incompetence in Operation Eagle Claw. (Obviously if Kenneth Kraus had been killed instead of injured and subsequently released, the story would be different, if only slightly.)

This appears to be a private Israeli news organization, not the Israeli government. It's pure speculation anyway.

It’s reported that the IDF is claiming they are coordinating its actions with America

https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/idf-expects-operation-against-iran-to-last-for-several-days/

putting American lives in danger by publishing

You are making that sound like a bad thing. If it is truthful reporting (and your verb "to publish" seems to indicate that you were not contesting that), then it is a good thing, not a bad thing.

I will grant you that there are some things which are net negative when published. For example, knowing what the nuclear launch codes are will not contribute to the readers having a more accurate map of the territory. Likewise, knowing which fetishes some celebrity is into will normally not update the world view of the readers to be worth the damage to the privacy.

Your sentence is really analogous to "When the teacher reported the dad who was fucking his kid to the police, she destroyed a happy family."

Our greatest ally

You sardonic phrasing makes it look like Israel and its inhabitants are pursuing a singular purpose. Please consider the possibility that not every Jew everywhere is following the master plan of the Elders of Zion all day long. If Bibi had published a press release where he praised the Americans for their support, that would indeed be a faux pas. But the utility function of reporters is different from the utility function of governments, both in Israel and elsewhere, for very good reasons.

It does not appear to be truthful reporting. American officials took the unusual step of announcing on several occasions that America is not on board with the attack. The IDF is telling reporters that they are coordinating with America. Unless the journalist is lying about what the IDF stated to them: https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/idf-expects-operation-against-iran-to-last-for-several-days/

Please consider the possibility that not every Jew everywhere is following the master plan of the Elders of Zion all day long

The “you’ve said something about Israel? — how dare you criticize every Jew in the world, I can’t believe you just quoted the elders of Zion!” that you see by the Israel crowd hasn’t been persuasive to normal people for many years, and has been used for decades. At this point it just signals your support for Israel. It is more dignified to just post the 🇮🇱 emoji.

At this point it just signals your support for Israel.

I should clarify that I support Israels right to exist (just like I support Belgium's right to exist), but am very much not a supporter of the current Israeli government. Apart from Iran, Netanyahu was the biggest ally Hamas had before Oct-7. His strategy of "let us support the religious nutjobs who definitely want to murder all Jews so that the Palestinian cause will be divided" backfired spectacularly. I am totally bewildered by the fact that the Israeli people are still suffering him to lead them.

Now, Hamas did try very hard to convince the world that they need to be wiped from the face of the Earth, and they certainly convinced me of that. If a few thousand Gazan civilians died in the process of wiping Hamas out, that would be sad, but I would not be very upset by it, as a German I understand that sometimes you will be accidentally killed in a bomb blast simply because your parent's generation voted for murderous nutjobs. My problem with the IDF is that from what I can see, that they are just dicking around, going in and out of Gaza, rescuing a hostage here, shooting one there, dropping a bomb on a refugee camp whenever the most senior not-yet-assassinated Hamas leader is there, or starving another thousand out of which exactly zero will be Hamas fighters. Unlike many, I do not think that the IDF is trying to genocide the Gazans out of existence, they know all too well how effective genocides work and this ain't it. But fuck if I know what they think their theory of victory is. "We just have to kill a few more Hamas fighters before their resistance will finally collapse!"? GWB's invasion of Afghanistan seems positively sane by comparison -- at least he had some plan to win the Afghan's hearts and minds through something other than morale bombing. Needlessly to say, if the point of the IDF operations in Gaza is to make the IDF feel less bad about their colossal failure on Oct-7, I am a lot less willing to cut them slack wrt civilian casualties.

Tbf to Israel they do seem to be arming and feeding and propping up some kind of Quisling tribal coalition that might evolve into a new Gaza government. But if that's the plan it's a ways away.

At this point it just signals your support for Israel. It is more dignified to just post the 🇮🇱 emoji.

Dude, you and your fellow Jew-posters turn everything into a story about Da Joos, ask anyone who questions you as to their Jewish affiliations, and are quick to post the most thinly-sourced claims about Jewish direction as proven fact while sneeringly dismissing anything contrary to that narrative no matter how well reasoned or documented.

Look in a mirror. You are the very reverse image of the pro-Israel partisan who deflects every criticism of Israel with bad faith accusations of anti-semitism. (An accusation that, frankly, seems less often bad faith than merely overly broad nowadays.)

Someone whose posts are full of thinly-veiled 1488 content is not in a position to snarkily comment on other people's lack of dignity and imply they are just 🇮🇱 wavers.

It does not appear to be truthful reporting. American officials took the unusual step of announcing on several occasions that America is not on board with the attack. The IDF is telling reporters that they are coordinating with America.

I think the only coherent reading of both claims is something like "Israel told the US ('coordinating with') they were going to do it, and US forces didn't take part in or recommended against ('not on board with') the actual action".

you’ve said something about Israel? — how dare you criticize every Jew in the world

No, your post had the opposite problem: you were criticizing a random Jew and acting as if that said something about Israel.

Channel 12 and two separate journalists reporting what the IDF told them makes it more probable that the IDF told them something than that these three journalists are lying

Anyone who doesn’t think this was clearly telegraphed is kidding themselves. The US pulling troops’ and diplomats’ families out of the region in recent days is about as clear a signal as you can give. The only developments in the conflict in recent years that appear to have been surprising were October 7th (which the IRGC seemingly didn’t even know about, at least not comprehensively), the Israeli surprise attack on Hezbollah (which was semi-expected, albeit not the exact format) and the Soleimani assassination. To some extent you can include Assad’s collapse, although all factions were surprised by that except for Turkey, which organized it.

Anyone who doesn’t think this was clearly telegraphed is kidding themselves.

So clearly telegraphed that Iran failed to notice anything and kept their VIPs in high-rises instead of bunkers?

Israel killed them in the bunkers.

Paywalled, but I believe you. Guess my 3 minutes of flipping through headlines this morning did not give me a complete picture of the events.

So clearly telegraphed that Iran failed to notice anything and kept their VIPs in high-rises instead of bunkers?

So clearly telegraphed it was on X and wire services (which is as close to an actual telegraph as you're going to get today, considering the etymology). If Iran wasn't paying attention, that's on them.

You only hear about the VIPs who got killed, too. There were warnings about Soleimani going to Baghdad but he still did it, a lot of senior clerics and IRGC are true believers in a kind of divine providence, a consequence of the elaborate ideological structure and testing Khomeini devised for the clergy and IRGC and wider IRP (which, though it was later dissolved, was the progenitor of countless subsequent organizations and currents) to prevent a successful counterrevolution by the large, secularized Iranian middle class and left. It’s quite possible they actually believe that what happens is God’s will and they’ll be protected if He wills it or something. In addition, it’s quite unconfident of a state to send everyone to the bunker every time Israel seems likely to attack, plus it affects government efficiency a great deal if the leaders are shuttling to and from bunkers.

Israel also doesn’t typically target Iran’s actual leaders in the clergy.

Are you willing to post a deep dive on how Iran actually works?

Revolutionary Iran by Axworthy only covers to 2012 but is probably the best introduction (meant only loosely, it’s relatively comprehensive unless you’re fascinated by a particular area of the Iranian state) to modern post-revolutionary Iranian history and the ideology of the revolutionaries before and in government. It shows quite meticulously how Khomeini strategically and patiently exploited just about every single cultural, class, political and ethnic division in Iranian politics to grant himself a level of absolute power rare even in the most autocratic traditional Islamic societies and then set about building an elaborate political operation and pipeline that sidelined even many of his own allied clerics (including many hardline Islamists) to ensure that the state he created would be extremely difficult to dismantle from within, even though he knew it would always be unpopular with Iran’s large, secular, urban PMC and wider middle class.

China is the largest trading partner to most countries in the middle east. They managed to do this and have large numbers of Chinese people working in the middle east by not wasting trillions enraging the middle east by bombing them. Israel supported jihadists in Syria, Europe got culturally enriched and the same terror groups attacked Europe.

The best thing the US could do to strengthen its position in the middle east would be to pull out all troops.

And Iran is not at war with China, so China can do this.

If Iran wants Israel to stop, they can negotiate peace.

No one is foolish enough these days to negotiate peace with the west. Every country knows it is just a pretext for the west to wait until it has a better position to destroy you.

Meh. Iran choose to have economy comparable in size to Denmark themselves. If they had done the sensible thing - chase growth they would be on par or even surpass Turkey by now. The west has no need to destroy them, their stupidity is enough.

Iran and Russia have pretensions to negotiate with the West as if they were equals, but they don’t have the cards. Even as a lifelong western stan, I’m still amazed at how easily the highly reputed armies of anti-western powers crumble. The quick and absolute dismantling of Saddam’s "top 5" army was one thing, against a superpower-backed coalition. But this is just a few western planes and drones taking out a big chunk of a regional power’s air defense, missile launches, leadership and nuclear sites in one go. It's another complete wipeout for a woke, decadent army versus the 'high asabiyah' hard men.

It's the price you pay for having an army of oprichniks. They are simply unsuited to fighting a peer force, and your regular army has no desire to fight for the regime that doesn't respect it.

Iran could dismantle the IRGC and let the army manage itself without overbearing ideological oversight, but this kind of perestroika would threaten the rule of the ayatollahs.

Only if you maintain your insubordinate and anti-American behaviors. Japan, for instance, has prospered quite well after negotiating for peace with America.

Someone named "Hadad" telling an American whose ancestors came here in the late 1600s to stop being insubordinate in order to prosper. It's like a perfect encapsulation of what is wrong with US politics. Fuentes massively vindicated by all this.

Amadan already handled this, but to clarify, 'you' is meant toward nations, not you as a person. And my name is definitely not actually Hadad.

Is your real name remzem? How do you know "Hadad" actually represents his ethnicity? Maybe it does, maybe not, but it's a thin pretext to start declaiming the purity of your bloodline. Stop making things personal.

Only if you maintain your insubordinate and anti-American behaviors

He made it personal first?

Maybe you should stop making it personal. Have a vendetta since I think your forum's rules are garbage and are strangling this place into irrelevancy. Never liked you on the old forum either before you made mod since all the regulars quit.

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Iran has no reason to hate China. The US and Israel has been warmongering in the region for decades and created completely unnecessary conflicts. The US could very will have had amicable relations with Iran. Instead they had warmongering and aggressive policies that have made the relation hard to fix.

Iran negotiated a deal with the US that the US then broke. The US invaded Iraq twice and Afghanistan. The US has a long history of bombing the middle east, assassinating people and destroying countries. The Iranians have every reason to be skeptical.

The US could very will have had amicable relations with Iran. Instead they had warmongering and aggressive policies that have made the relation hard to fix.

Iran's hatred of the US is because we backed the Shah, and because of Iran's ongoing support for a global Islamic revolution (sometimes people forget that religious fanatics really do believe in their religion). Israel is an aggravating factor, but Iran, a Persian Shia nation, cares about Palestinian Arabs and Israel's other Sunni Arab neighbors getting fucked only inasmuch as it is leverage against the Great Satan, the West.

If the US dropped all support for Israel today, Iran would still hate us and would still be funding Islamic terrorism around the world. They don't just want us to stop "warmongering," they want us completely out of the Middle East so they can turn it into an Islamic state (under Iranian control). China, if they were left as sole hegemon in the region, would have to start contending with that, instead of being able to act indifferent towards Islam like they are right now.

To be fair at this point every US president for 25 years has openly had calls for regime change in Iran. It's not like they're holding some grudge from their grandfather, every living Iranian knows part of the American government wouldn't mind if they were dead.

Well, to also be fair, every Ayatollah since the Shah was overthrown has called for death to America, and we know that the Iranian government, by and large, is on board with this. The grudge certainly runs both ways, but Obama did make some half-assed attempts at normalization and look what that got us.

I kind of feel about Iran the same way I feel about Israel and Palestine - there is a lot of wrongdoing and doublespeak on both sides, but there is one side that really could have peace if they wanted it, but they clearly do not actually want it.

To be even more fair, there's been like two ayatollahs.

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Iran's ongoing support for a global Islamic revolution

On the flip side they fought against the Jihadists in Syria and helped Syria defend itself. We should be thankful for that. When Iraq was invaded they helped Iraqis fight for their independence. They have not sponsored the type of muslims that attack European Christmas markets. Those types of jihadists are backed by Israel.

Who even cares what Iran thinks of the west? They are in their part of the world and are willing to trade with the other parts of the world. The US and Israel has smashed other countries and supported jihadism. The US and Israel are against stable and reasonable states and wants to turn the middle east into a giant Afghanistan.

Not to mention the whole coup/Shah thing on behalf of oil interests.

On behalf of oil interests? Oh, you mean the part where Western nations invested in Iran to develop its oil infrastructure under a rev sharing deal that was considered mutually beneficial at the time only to then be seized by future socialists?

The who/what/why doesn't really matter at this point though.

The point is the USA backed a regime change, and the end result 70 years later is Iran is no longer controlled by that regime, and HATES the counties involved in establishing that regime.

So what do we think will happen if we try it again?

The US and Israel no longer want to do nation building and building friendly regimes. They are going for destruction. The new model is turning countries into Libya or Syria. Wrecked countries controlled by various competing militias. A disaster for the country, an eradication of the local Christians and a refugee crisis or Europe.

Yes - that. We can argue about the ethics of a country defending its citizens' property rights by couping foreign governments till the cows come home, but if we are considering the practical wisdom of doing so then "The 1953 Iranian coup had long-term negative consequences for the West which vastly outweigh the potential impact of an oil company being nationalised" is simply true and needs to be taken into account. In the world of international politics, a mistake is worse than a crime.

The West developed many nations in the way it did Iran. At some point you need to make it clear that stealing the West's investment in your nation has consequences.

The counterfactual world where we just let Iran get away with it and then emboldened socialists the world over to run on a platform of stealing Western investment is worse.

Iran is also not at war with the US, so the US could do that too, if it wanted.

In an iterated game, the result of choosing your policy based willingness to put your troops in danger is the increase number of actors who are willing to put your troops in danger.

The US participated in a massive campaign to lull Iran into thinking an attack was not going to happen immediately

I think that the campaign can't have been that massive, given that the US telegraphed the likelihood of something like this happening by starting to withdraw non-essential personnel from its Middle East embassies a few days ago.

Yeah, and it was pretty obvious given that you couldn't buy pizza near the pentagon

Rubio has denied American involvement. Not that we'd admit it even if we were involved.

https://x.com/WhiteHouse/status/1933328486669697508

Though it makes sense for Israel to claim otherwise. If Iran strikes US bases it will help them pull us into their war. On the off chance the neocons haven't already greenlit it.

I'll admit to not being overly familiar with the history of SoS press releases in response to Israeli actions..but this seems like a shift in tone from the Biden regime doesn't it? Rubio offers no praise of Israel, no solemn intonation of our close alliance, no love for our "closest middle eastern ally." It's not even entirely clear that Israel is among the "regional partners" they are in close contact with.

I'll admit to playing Fantasy Trump right now, but this is just about where I'd like the USA to be when something like this happened.

I think the US is trying to play good cop/bad cop here. Trump's pretty much gone out and said "Negotiate with us or deal with their wrath."

I think Trump is getting dog-walked by Netanyahu, reacting to events and trying to seem in control, while actually being in a reactive mode and failing to achieve any kind of leadership over his putative allies or the people he has a "great" relationship with.

Whether Trump knew about it in advance or not, I don't think he wanted Israel to do this.

His whole selling point on the foreign policy front was that world leaders would tremble at the mere thought of crossing Mad Man Trump.

If that's now shown as fantasy and Putin, Xi, Netanyahu etc. are ignoring him and doing whatever they want anyway, where does that leave things?

It's now just accepted conventional wisdom that Israel wants to drag the United States into a likely globally-destabilizing conflict on the basis of their insane, racial-supremacist Abrahamic cult-myths. We're totally done with bullshit platitudes about this being about oil or Spreading Democracy. Everybody knows now. We're done with the precepts. At this point there's nothing left to say, all of the predictions and analysis of the so-called Anti-Semitic Right is proven correct. It's just a matter of whose side you're on at this point.

#NoWarWithPersia.

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"What I believe" is not "Just accepted conventional wisdom."

Who is "we"?

You can argue these points. You cannot just assert them in an effort to claim rhetorical territory.

You get plenty of slack for your Joo-posting, but the rules against consensus building and rallying for a cause still apply.

This is a bad mod flag: SS in this case was pointing out the assumed consensus in the post he was replying to, which stated as conventional wisdom that Israel is trying to drag the USA into a war.

"Israel is trying to pull us into a war" is fine.

It's now just accepted conventional wisdom that Israel wants to drag the United States into a likely globally-destabilizing conflict on the basis of their insane, racial-supremacist Abrahamic cult-myths.

is not "conventional wisdom," it's an ideological argument. Which he wrapped with "We're totally done with bullshit platitudes about this being about oil or Spreading Democracy. Everybody knows now. We're done with the precepts. At this point there's nothing left to say, all of the predictions and analysis of the so-called Anti-Semitic Right is proven correct. It's just a matter of whose side you're on at this point."

That's the kind of "we" consensus-building and rallying we have always modded.

NoWarWithPersia

Kill all the Ayatollahs and remove this regime and then I agree with you.

Yeah the last time we did regime changes in Iran it had such great outcomes!!!

Yeah the last time we did regime changes in Iran it had such great outcomes!!!

The US never did regime change in Iran; the US supported the regime, and it lost.

1953 coup?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat

...because regime change wars clearly worked out so great for us in the past...

That is the thing. You don't do regime change. You do regime removal and let the people sort it themselves.

The US and NATO helped engineer the removal of Muammar Gaddafi… how’s Libya doing today?

We haven't had Lockerbies in a while.

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Libya stabilized quite a few years ago (with 2 governments) although this week Haftar intervened in Sudan. Now, it's not great (HDI etc. lower than under Gaddafi) but

Which IMO leads to anarchy, semi-organised militia, and national / international terrorism. ISIS was 'the people sorting it out themselves'. So was the Taliban and so is al-Queda.

It's now just accepted conventional wisdom... Everybody knows now.

Define 'conventional wisdom' and 'everybody'.

The desire for another Iraq war fiasco is extremely low. More war mongering in the middle east, more refugees to Europe, surging oil prices and another forever war was not what Trump campaigned on for a reason. All these wars have been disasters and there is no reason to think the next war won't be as bad as Libya, Iraq, Syria or Yemen.

It is unpopular now and it will be as unpopular as Iraq war 2.0 was once this fiasco has ended.

I don't see the connection?

The point I would make - and perhaps I wasn't transparent enough about it? - is that I see no evidence whatsoever that it is 'conventional wisdom' that 'Israel wants to drag the United States into a likely globally-destabilizing conflict on the basis of their insane, racial-supremacist Abrahamic cult-myths'.

I think that SS and his crowd are, to put it bluntly, anti-semites who would oppose anything involving Israel on principle. They just hate Jews. The fact that increasing numbers of Americans are critical of Israeli actions does not indicate that those Americans accept the anti-semitic position. It's entirely possible, even likely, for one to believe that America should not risk getting further involved in conflicts in the Middle East, and that therefore America should either back off from involvement with, or should actively seek to restrain, Israeli aggression, without believing the SS argument about Jews.

Hence my question. I think SS is eliding the difference between declining support for Israel and increasing support for anti-semitism, so to speak. The 'Anti-Semitic Right' school of thought on Israel is both lunatic on its own terms and not accepted by the wider public. I see no strong reason to believe that public criticism of Israeli actions, and specifically criticism of the Iran strikes, indicates growing sympathy for anti-semitism as such.

The fact of the matter is Israels interest is a destablized middle east with weak neighbors. This has caused the to get in conflict with everyone around them and flooded Europe with migrants. It is a problematic country founded on an insane religious doctrine that is heretical to christianity and that is nothing but a headache to us. There is no reason to support them what so ever.

Well, let's take that point by point.

Israels interest is a destablized middle east with weak neighbors.

I think this is probably half-true? Israel is very conscious of being a small country surrounded by larger neighbours, most of whom would probably like to destroy Israel if they can. I think that is decreasingly the case now, but Israel's formative decades occurred in the face of much more active hostility, and that mentality has penetrated deeply, and even now, I think most of Israel's neighbours, if given a magic button to destroy Israel, would press that button. As such it makes sense that the Israelis want to keep their neighbours divided.

I'm not sure they want their neighbours destabilised, as such. Failed states in the neighbourhood represent security threats to Israel, and easy recruiting grounds for organisations like Hezbollah. Israel's interests are not found in their neighbours collapsing, even if they are found in their neighbours being disunited.

This has caused the to get in conflict with everyone around them and flooded Europe with migrants.

This accuses Israel of a kind of unilateral aggression, which I think is unfair given the above history. Israel has sometimes acted aggressively towards its neighbours and I'll admit that without shame, but I think you're missing a lot of the story if you don't contextualise that in terms of deep local hostility to Israel.

I'm also not sure why you bring up refugees fleeing to Europe - what's the relevance? It also seems worth noting that that the big 2015 migrant crisis in Europe did not have anything proximate to do with Israel. That was primarily due to the Syrian Civil War, which was not particularly caused by Israel. The United States itself seems significantly more involved than Israel.

It is a problematic country founded on an insane religious doctrine that is heretical to christianity

It can't be heretical, because heresy is internal. Judaism is not a form of Christianity, so Judaism cannot be a Christian heresy.

That said, I am not sure by what standard one can claim that Judaism is 'insane' but Christianity or for that matter Islam are not. It seems to me that either 1) Judaism is insane, but Christianity and Islam are not, in which case I'd like to hear the explanation as to why, or 2) Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are all insane, in which case it doesn't make much sense to single Israel out.

You can take the position that Christian countries should never ally with or render any aid to non-Christian countries, which would certainly be something to unpack at further length, if you're interested?

There is no reason to support them what so ever.

Well, I imagine that if I asked an American politician they might be able to think of plenty of reasons to do with America's strategic interests in the region?

That said, as I'm an Australian, my view on the whole Israel/Palestine conflict is that it's none of our business and I think we should probably focus on issues in our own region.

Always funny how the jews are simultaneously way too pragmatic and "insane", apparently.

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It's just a matter of whose side you're on at this point.

Meh, we're certainly not on the side of Iranians.

Which ought to be a sign that maybe this faux consensus "all our analysis is proven correct" is oversimplification.

It's a very sad state of affairs we're not on the side of Iranians.

A perfect representation of what it means to be "Woke right". Daydreaming about an abusive relationship with a regime that isn't shy about how much it despises you just for the sake of killing the Jews.

No Aryan ever called me a Goy

“Death to America” is a pretty good horseshoe

Israel would have almost exactly the same national security interests and likely strategic patterns of behavior even if it had no element of racial-supremacist Abrahamic cult-myths, though. Its strategic behavior is much more driven by its status as a small country that is populated by an ethnic group with a recent history of being genocided and that has a powerful superpower friend than it is by Jewish ethno-supremacist sentiments or Abrahamic cult myths.

A similar train of thought, by the way, is also why I don't think Israel or the US have anything much to worry about if Iran develops nuclear weapons. Iran might be a theocratic state with a lot of political influence from true believers in Islam, but I think that the chance that, if it developed nuclear weapons, its leaders would launch a nuclear strike that would get themselves annihilated... is close to zero. Hence the idea that Israel must prevent Iran from building nuclear weapons no matter what strikes me as pretty silly if evaluated from a cold objective perspective (of course in practice, it's not surprising that emotions run high if another country rhetorically calls for your country's destruction and is trying to build nukes). Realistically speaking, if Iran develops nukes relations between the two countries will probably just follow the India-Pakistan model.

Realistically speaking, if Iran develops nukes relations between the two countries will probably just follow the India-Pakistan model.

I would argue one key difference is that geographically, Israel is small enough for a limited amouny of nuclear weapons to take out a significant chunk of the country.

The issue is a bit less “Will Iran strike Israel with nukes” and more “Will Iran feel more degrees of freedom to attack Israel since an Israel’s response will need to be measured.”

Israel would have almost exactly the same national security interests and likely strategic patterns of behavior even if it had no element of racial-supremacist Abrahamic cult-myths, though.

Israel would never had existed if they didn't have that though.

Realistically speaking, if Iran develops nukes relations between the two countries will probably just follow the India-Pakistan model.

The model that came horrifically close to nuclear war earlier this year, and would still seem to be on a long-term trajectory towards it?

I don't see any reason to think that the India-Pakistan war earlier this year came anywhere close to a nuclear war.

The dynamics are also different. India and Pakistan border each other and can fight a conventional war that escalates, they also have an ongoing border dispute.

Israel Iran would be more analogous to the actual US v Russia Cold War (although even they did/do actually border each other). They can exchange nukes but they can’t mount a ground invasion of each other.

The elites of all four countries in both the India/Pakistan and Israel/Iran conflicts are relatively corrupt and don’t want to die, which distinguishes them from e.g. Sunni Islamist terrorists. And the fact that Israel / Iran don’t have an active border dispute that could escalate is probably also bullish on the no nuclear war side.

—Inb4 “low effort post ban” Additional facts and my thoughts will be added as the situation develops

You know, without this passive-aggressive snidery, I would have just warned you and pointed out why we don't want people to rush to post "BREAKING NEWS" just to be the first person to post about it.

But since you clearly did it knowing the rules, and really did just want to be FIRST! Banned for three days, so this discussion will be happening without you.

This is a good mod action -- excessive caps lock is annoying and not helpful for a site like this.

Great!

There is a place where news junkies can get unsourced, low effort news reports in close to real time. That place is twitter. The thing which makes the motte useful is that it is not twitter.

I'm a bit of a dissenter on this one. I get the point; I really do. I don't want to be bombarded by every single little thing that happens. That said, from an objective perspective, I think there is a 100% chance that TheMotte will discuss a story that is this impactful and this close to the culture war. There is a 0% chance that it will not be discussed. This is not some random little news story that, if it's just not posted with a low effort comment, it'll skate by and never take up precious Motte real estate (which is the fate that I hope for with most of the random little news stories that the rules are trying to filter out). I felt the same way about the (main) Trump assassination attempt. (I will note that this is not some pet topic of mine; I almost never comment on Israel matters and would actually prefer less of them in general; I have not otherwise commented in this one, either. But this is truly a "C'mon" one.)

Thus, in my mind, the only question is how such 100% stories make it to the Motte. Speaking personally, it feels almost impossible to write a 'quality' top-level comment on it. There's not some ultra-unique take I'm going to have that provides an independent reason why I'm bringing it to your attention. What is the actual bar to clear? I don't actually know. Just fluff it up a bit, like you're re-reporting from a few sources? Seems weak to me. If we actually deleted these low-effort comments rather than just temp banning them, what would we get? Would this story just never get discussed? I doubt it. At worst, it'll end up in one of the links posts that are (allowed!) in the Transnational Thursday Thread, and then the entire discussion will blow up there.

Right now, the equilibrium is that somebody (or their alt account) is willing to take a ban to just do the thing that needs to be done.

An alternate solution that has sufficed from time to time is a megathread. You can see how that works with, e.g., US election results. There's little point in making someone have to come up with the gumption to think that they're going to have some 'quality' TLC for the discussion to happen. Everyone knows there's a 100% chance that discussion is going to happen. It just happens to be that the mods know in advance that that's the case, so we don't have to have someone eat a ban in the process. They don't know that in advance for a major Israeli attack on Iran or a presidential assassination attempt. The dream would be to have some mechanism by which a topic is so obviously a 100% topic that it prompts the mods to say, "C'mon, this is obviously a 100% topic; just click this button, and it'll make a megathread, so no one has to eat a ban." Yes yes, this is not a trivial mechanism to design.

To not leave this comment without at least some suggestion that might be plausible, I'll at least try one. IF the community were to embrace some version of this "100% topic" terminology, we could just include an additional reporting option. We could report low-effort comments like this one with the report, "Low-effort, but c'mon, this is a 100% topic." If enough people report [EDIT: and it actually meets the mod-declared standards for 100% topics], the mods could then respond with, "Approved on grounds of being a 100% topic," rather than a ban. Paired with this, to discourage low-effort comments that only might be a 100% topic, I would also support locking/deleting the entire chain of comments that follow a low-effort TLC that doesn't get approved as a 100% topic. I think the resulting equilibrium would be a lot better than just having to have someone eat a ban every time for no real reason.

EDIT: Concerning the "first" incentive, why does that exist? I'd maybe guess it's because people think that whoever posts it first will get upvotes for whatever reason. Right now, I guess they trade that off with bans or something? We could develop a norm of just downvoting them. Make the report option say, "I have downvoted this low-effort comment, but c'mon, it's a 100% topic." Since the incentive to be "first" is so minor, this disincentive to be "first" will also be minor. At least, it'll be less harsh than eating a ban. You can do the needful, eat a -50, then actually participate in this and other discussion. And if you're wrong about it being a 100% topic, you eat the downvotes, eat the ban, and your topic disappears.

Right now, the equilibrium is that somebody (or their alt account) is willing to take a ban to just do the thing that needs to be done.

The requirements for a top level post in the CW thread are notably lower than the requirements for a doctorate in international affairs. Original thought is fine, but so is paraphrasing/citing/linking takes of others.

We do not require a Scott-Alexander-much-more-than-you-wanted-to-know 40 hour full depth investigation.

Ideally, you would wait until reputable (in a bounded-distrust sense) media report the facts, then quote or paraphrase them. If it is big news, it will be reported by everyone, so you can check multiple sources, from the New York fucking Times to Al-Jazeera. Provide a few links. Some of the reported facts will be contested by comments, some may even turn out to be wrong. This is ok, but it is still useful to have a shared base of claims or (ideally) agreed-upon facts before the arguments start. If the top level comment for Oct-7 is "BREAKING: HAMAS KILLED A BUNCH OF ISRAELIS. LIKE A LOT. MORE DETAILS TO FOLLOW", then the comments will have to establish what actually happened.

The competitive advantage of the motte is not that it can report what is true faster than twitter, nor that it is better at reporting facts than the news media. The advantage is that it offers takes from a broad spectrum, at least some of which are typically interesting. But good takes can only appear once the facts are half-way settled. Sure, any idiot with a twitter account can reply to "BREAKING: IDF BOMBING IRAN" with either "Fucking Jews are trying to start World War 3 again" or "Bloody camel-fucking antisemites had it coming". But all the interesting takes, like "This was mostly theater for the benefit of Netanyahu's domestic audience, and here is why ..." or "The nuclear weapons angle is a distraction, by taking out a few military leaders Israel managed to reshape the landscape of Iranian politics, as ..." or "Actually, this is a direct consequence of a recent development of the Ukraine war, where ..." will only happen after the facts are in and the posters have had a day to think on them and how they tie into their world view.

A decent current news top level post is basically providing a canvas for takes.

Another low-hanging fruit is reports of reactions by relevant parties. What did Trump say about it? Did Putin react? Again, this is typically widely reported.

Then, you might want to link this to culture war topics. What takes are trending in the cesspits of social media? Are the wokes condemning it as colonialist violence or something? Is the anti-nuclear crowd celebrating?

Then, you might already offer some takes of your own, or link to takes from elsewhere you found interesting, but personally I consider this optional for top level posts on news topics which are sure to spark discussion.

I confess that I do not track which news stories are skipped by the motte because nobody can be arsed to spend a quarter of an hour to write a decent top level post on them. My suspicion is that we would not have skipped the attacks on Iran, but feel free to point out such news stories, or instances of people having gotten a warning/ban after making a low effort post (say, a link to the Guardian, plus a one paragraph quote, plus a two sentence take) for stuff which sparked a lot of discussion.

I see this as a coordination problem. We do not have a system to assign news items to posters, so you will only want to tackle news items when you are confident that you are not preempting another user who is in the middle of a more detailed writeup. I would propose a system of sliding standards. In the first 24h of a news item being reported, I would expect someone putting in a solid twenty minutes of citing multiple news sources. After 36h, if it is an important CW news item (e.g. the first Trump tariff story, not the tenth), I propose top level posters should get away with a low effort post (source+quote+two sentences).

The competitive advantage of the motte is not that it can report what is true faster than twitter, nor that it is better at reporting facts than the news media.

I think you have mistaken what my model was. I agree with this.

A decent current news top level post is basically providing a canvas for takes.

I think a pretty low-effort comment is sufficient to provide the canvas. It seems to me that you are asking for it to paint the canvas.

But all the interesting takes, like ... will only happen after the facts are in and the posters have had a day to think on them and how they tie into their world view.

If the mods believe this, then they should simply impose a moratorium. No breaking news for 24hrs. That would be clear.

I would propose a system of sliding standards. In the first 24h of a news item being reported, I would expect someone putting in a solid twenty minutes of citing multiple news sources. After 36h, if it is an important CW news item (e.g. the first Trump tariff story, not the tenth), I propose top level posters should get away with a low effort post (source+quote+two sentences).

This seems like an unstable equilibrium. An individual actor can defect by putting in only 19min of work. Then the next individual actor can defect by putting in only 18min of work. Rinse and repeat. My proposal acknowledges that it is a useful service to provide a canvas, but only for a small subset of genuine 100% topics. Moreover, it says that this service is valued in that it will not be warned/banned, but in order to maintain incentives for the equilibrium, it will come with a shower of downvotes and significant penalties if you're wrong about it being a 100% topic.

This kind of thing is why I miss the low effort thread. News gets quick takes, “olds” get analysis, and bundling the twain gets a mad muddle.

I am genuinely shaking my head in amazement that you wrote such a long wall of text to defend such an absurd argument and expect it to be taken seriously.

Right now, the equilibrium is that somebody (or their alt account) is willing to take a ban to just do the thing that needs to be done.

What are you even talking about? How many times has someone been banned for this? Any guesses? You talk like this is how it usually goes down, that when a big breaking news event happens, everyone wants to talk about it and someone has "take one for the team" and post a thread-starter they will get banned for.

Of course when big events happen, there will inevitably be a thread about it. Because someone will write about it. And they will, hopefully, write at least a measly paragraph or two that is something beyond just "HEY GUYS SOMETHING BIG IS HAPPENING I WANT TO BE THE FIRST TO START A THREAD SO MY THREAD WILL THE THREAD ABOUT IT!"

Our standards are not high. They are not unreasonable. You do not have to write an essay, a flowery effortpost, or come up with some wildly innovative idea. You just have to not look like an attention whore on Twitter.

There is a very simple solution for a major event worthy of discussion: write something about it. If it's too low effort, we'll probably clear our throats and say "Low effort, don't do this." Sometimes we will create a mega thread, like for elections and other predictable events. If next week, World War III has started, we will probably create a mega thread for it (you know, if we're alive and the Internet is still up and stuff).

@ABigGuy4U ate a ban because he was so blatant, so deliberate, so "Tee hee ain't I clever guys!" about it. I explained this. Normally if someone rushed to be FIRST! we'd just warn them not to do it again (as I said!) and let the thread continue. But someone who goes out of his way to be obnoxious about it, yeah, he's going to eat a ban. Don't tell us "I'm breaking the rules on purpose because the rules are stupid and I want attention." Of course I'm going to be inclined to respond harshly to that.

Our standards are not high. They are not unreasonable. You do not have to write an essay, a flowery effortpost, or come up with some wildly innovative idea. You just have to not look like an attention whore on Twitter.

And yet you praised /u/Hadad for writing a flowery effortpost.

It was not a flowery effortpost.

How many times has someone been banned for this? Any guesses?

I am qualitatively annoyed by the situation, which is independent of the frequency. However, you have the mod history, so if you'd like to provide numbers to supplement the conceptual-level discussion, that would be appreciated.

You do not have to write an essay, a flowery effortpost, or come up with some wildly innovative idea. You just have to not look like an attention whore on Twitter.

There is a very simple solution for a major event worthy of discussion: write something about it. If it's too low effort, we'll probably clear our throats and say "Low effort, don't do this."

Technically, even this OP wrote something about it. But yeah, I still have no idea what the actual standard is.

Normally if someone rushed to be FIRST! we'd just warn them not to do it again (as I said!) and let the thread continue.

Perhaps your numbers from the mod history will bear out that the typical response is just a warning. I still think this is a bad equilibrium. It provides insufficient distinction between typical low effort garbage that we don't want and obvious 100% topics, which we (I) do. Moreover, I prefer a world where this distinction is overt in policy.

For any other mods who might be casually interested in subscribing to my newsletter this meta topic, I would like to note that so far in the responses, I see very little engagement with my conceptual definition of the problem to be solved, the incentives involved, the current or desired equilibria, or valuation methods for what type of resulting posting dynamics we'd prefer.

I am qualitatively annoyed by the situation, which is independent of the frequency. However, you have the mod history, so if you'd like to provide numbers to supplement the conceptual-level discussion, that would be appreciated.

We don't have a record of "How many times someone was banned for a low effort top level post," but it's not common. Pretty much only when someone is a repeat offender after being warned, or being a deliberate jerk about it.

Moreover, I prefer a world where this distinction is overt in policy.

This is in the general category of requests we receive from time to time to, essentially, codify in minute detail the exact rubric we shall use to decide whether or not someone gets banned in every possible situation, and then consider ourselves bound to it so if someone makes a convincing enough case that "Actually, per clause 3 in paragraph 4, the offender did not meet the necessary threshold for banning" we will be forced to acquit. That's not how it works and it's not how it's ever going to work. "Low effort" is subjective, and it's always going to be subjective. Over time the mods have converged on something like a general consensus (not just on "low effort") such that most of the time, when we ask each other "Hey, do you think this post merits a ban?" there will be general agreement as to whether it does or doesn't. But it's not always unanimous, and depending who mods you, Amadan might decide on Tuesday to just give you a warning, and netstack might decide on Thursday to ban you for a week.

I understand this may be frustrating to those who have an autistic need to have the exact decision process mapped out for them, but you're just going to have to negotiate that. We're not a court of law, we respond to general community feeling, our own intuitions, and history, and trying to keep an interesting place running with maximal freedom of speech without letting people shit on the commons is more important than writing rules for autists.

(I am not calling you autistic; I have no idea whether you are or not. I'm just saying that the need to have all vagaries and subjectivity removed from human decision-making strikes me as a very autistic desire.)

Excellent news! I am not asking for every minute detail of a rubric. I understand that there is some subjectivity in modding.1 Instead, what I'm asking for is much more high level than that. Just an acknowledgment that "providing a canvas" (to use @quiet_NaN's terminology) for discussion on a 100% topic is a useful service, rather than having it be a warnable/banable offense. It's just a change in subjective mindset (and policy). It's a useful service to stand in for something like automated identification/posting of megathreads for 100% topics.

1 - I have made a distinct complaint when a mod action couldn't point to any actual problem whatsoever, but that's obviously also different.

I don't really get what the problem here is. The effort required is basically just to actually put together the currently publicly available information and describe why people would be interested in discussing it. It's the kind of thing a college bound high schooler should be expected to be able to do in 20 minutes. And for this effort bar we filter out a lot of fluff. The cost is that we will have to wait 20 minutes for someone to do this before we have a discussion about breaking news, but we're not aiming to be a breaking news platform so this is a very low cost.

It aids discussion a lot to have a rough draft of the facts that can then be directly disputed, it channels discussion in a less free form way.

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Yeah man, hovering over this forum waiting for someone to do a flowery effortpost about how the moon just exploded (or whatever) so we can talk about it is kinda dumb.

What are the rules about just starting a new random thread on the front page? Can we just post a moon explosion thread whenever we want and post any kind of trash in it?

Nobody says you have to make a flowery effortpost. There are plenty of topics that get posted where someone has two or three sentences saying what they think about the topic. That's all you need.

Isn't that the general precedent? Top-level big thread, keep it out of CW thread? My $0.02 = no reason for a ban.

Should have thrown in another three days FOR USING ALL CAPS. My eyes are burning.

But it's cruise control for cool.

I liked it. It was like an old-timey teletype news wire.

The US Navy only knew how to shout on the internet until 2013.

Ice cold

Inb4 “low effort post ban”

One of the reasons this rule exists, especially for breaking news stories, is precisely because the story may be evolving rapidly and we don’t have all the facts yet. Limited/incomplete information is not conducive to producing the sort of high quality analysis that we want to cultivate here. Also the story might just turn out to be a total nothingburger that doesn’t even warrant a top level post. Kinda like the last Israeli missile attack on Iran.

Symbolic at best. Most Iranian nuclear facilities are buried deep underground, conventional weapons and likely even Israel’s existing nuclear arsenal are incapable of destroying them.

Israel’s existing nuclear arsenal are incapable of destroying them.

Israel has probably had hydrogen bombs since the late 1970s.

The military consensus appears to be, but correct me if I’m wrong, that many Iranian nuclear facilities are buried so deep that even direct hits wouldn’t necessary be slam dunk destructive to the facility. There are semi-reliable sources that claim the bulk of the most valuable development conducted at Natanz is 800m below ground protected additionally by dozens of meters of shielding. Even moreso than almost all of the US’ nuclear bunkers the entire facility has been engineered to withstand a direct Israeli nuclear hit from the get go, and the Iranians are widely considered competent engineers.

I don't know exactly why the IAEA claims that Iran has facilities 800m down, but as far as I'm aware reliable estimates place the new Natanz underground complex at 40-50m down, with the old underground complex much shallower but with about 7.5m of concrete shielding. The new complex is still under development, which is one reason Israel may have decided to strike it now. Fordow is 80-100m down and that provides protection from even US bunker busters - by the time you get to 800m you're reaching mineshaft-level conditions which require serious ventilation and cooling facilities on the surface to do anything resembling nuclear manufacturing (to put it another way, you could cripple the site just by blowing up the aircon). There's just no reason for Iran to go that deep, but it seems to me that they claim far deeper facilities because a bigger number is more impressive in the third-worldist mind, and international inspections bodies are pretty gullible.

I think the heat dissipation will be a similar problem with a depth of 50m. You will need active cooling either way, and the facility can be trivially disabled by attacking either the surface structures or the power lines.

The reason why you put your weapons program in the underground is not that you will be impervious from surface attacks. It is so that surface attacks will not set you back very much.

Fans and pumps for cooling, or electricity are not a bottleneck for the Iranian weapons program. Their bottlenecks are definitely gas centrifuges and enriched uranium, plus possibly engineers to design their bombs and raw uranium.

Also, if the Iran manages to put Israel in a situation where their best option is to be the first country in 80 years to use a nuclear weapon in anger, that itself would be a big win on their part. In retrospect, the obvious place for a nuclear facility would be deep under Tehran, so that when someone nukes you, they will also murder a few millions Muslims. It is certainly where Hamas would have placed such a facility.

Oh, heat dissipation, ventilation, etc. is definitely a concern at 50m too, it's just more of an issue at 800m (note that mineshafts are generally cooler than outside air at the start, then heat up as you go down). More stuff to get blown up on the surface, more difficulty repairing it after a strike. If 100m protects you from US bunker busters, no need to keep digging.

I'm seeing claims that Israel "destroyed" the underground structures at Natanz, but from the pictures going around it looks more like the kind of surface strike you describe - smash up the aboveground buildings and tunnel entrances to set things back and make the site a pain to clean up, ideally contaminate the site with the radioactive materials already there.

It's quite possible clear the sites are deeper.

Back in the GWB II era neocons American like Cheney were obsessed with hydrogen bomb bunker busters and talking loudly how such strikes are clean bc the radiation is mostly contained. Which is kind of true.

Hamas would have scavenged such a facility long before it produced anything. Rockets now or nukes later? The decision practically makes itself.

To be fair, during the preparations of Oct-7, Hamas actually passed the Marshmallow test.

It is certainly where Hamas would have placed such a facility.

Hamas seems to be the only governing body on the planet where "deliberately putting your own people on danger" is seen as a plus, not a minus. I have trouble imagining, say, the Russian populace being used as public affairs shields by Putin on such a scale and putting up with it.

Do Hezbollah and the Houthis also do this?

Hezbollah to a limited extent, but they're not what I would have considered a full governing body. Houthis, I have no idea what their infrastructure or... anything there actually is like, I will admit.

I think it's because it's the only governing body on the planet that is ideologically bound to engage in total warfare against an opponent that dominates it in every way, so that losing in ways that creates a PR nightmare for their opponent is the only possible victory they can get.

I also find it fascinating not just for their decision to use it as a strategy, but for the population to go along with it with (apparently) only limited coercion required.

It is also probably the governing body whose leaders spend least time in the territory they govern. Your average tinpot dictator is most likely to be found in his Presidential Palace in his own country. Hamas leadership are most likely to be found in a luxury hotel in Qatar.

At the same time, there surely exists some threshold where a direct attack on another country’s capital city goes from “potentially just symbolic” to “definitely not symbolic”.

It means that Iran will launch actual strikes on Tel Aviv and Jerusalem targeting civilian infrastructure or more important military sites depending on what the Israelis just hit (this is far from a surprise attack so one presumes there was a degree of telegraphing in advance, the US moved troops, the Iranians had several days to move things around).

The overall situation remains the same: neither Israel nor Iran are capable of invading each other and therefore of fighting an actual war.

Another insult to Trump given he asked for one more weekend of talks. I suppose they own enough of the other politicians and news orgs they don't mind if he isn't 100% on board.

Looks like good cop, bad cop routine to me.

Edit:

The intrigue: But in the hours after the attack began, Israeli officials briefed reporters that this was all coordinated with Washington.

Two Israeli officials claimed to Axios that Trump and his aides were only pretending to oppose an Israeli attack in public — and didn't express opposition in private. "We had a clear U.S. green light," one claimed.

The goal, they say, was to convince Iran that no attack was imminent and make sure Iranians on Israel's target list wouldn't move to new locations.

Netanyahu's aides even briefed Israeli reporters that Trump had tried to put the brakes on an Israeli strike in a call on Monday, when in reality the call dealt with coordination ahead of the attack, Israeli officials now say.

https://www.axios.com/2025/06/13/how-israel-executed-strike-iran-nuclear

Some background for those just tuning in.

https://www.twz.com/news-features/damning-iaea-report-has-given-israel-additional-pretext-to-strike-iran

In short, Ali Hosseini Khamenei, the head of state for the Islamic Repubic of Iran has stated on multiple occasions his desire to see "the Jews driven into the sea" and "eradicated". To this end it has been the official position of the Isreali government for decades now that a nuclear armed Iran poses an existential threat, and that they will take any and all action neccesary to prevent this. Most of the negotiations between the US, Iran, and other Arab countries over the last 15 years (Obama's vaunted "Nuclear Deal" and Trump's "Abraham Accords" to name two examples) have been oriented towards heading off this eventuality. However a recent report from the International Atomic Energy Agency suggests that Iran has been concealing thier true capabilities and that they may be mere weeks from having a functional bomb if they do have one already and that furthermore they are expanding thier uranium enrichment facilities.

Iran has been weeks away from having a functional bomb for the last 20 years. It may sound like a joke, but I'm guessing it's their actual policy. There's currently a fatwah against nuclear weapons, and while Western ears may hear that as a half-hearted "we really mean we aren't developing nukes", the Iranian government violating its own fatwah would cause a loss of credibility that could be fatal to the regime. The goal appears to be "nuclear capable", meaning that if there were some existential threat, like a full-bore invasion, they could quickly produce a nuclear weapon, because at that point the benefits clearly outweigh the costs. Unless Israel seriously ratchets up these attacks, I doubt we'll ever see Iran openly testing nuclear weapons or making public announcements that they have them. Because if they do that apropos of nothing, what do they have to gain? People get even more pissed off than they already are, and Saudi Arabia starts its own nuclear program.

IAEA said they're days away from having 300 kg of weapons grade material, enough for a dozen nukes.(How they found out? Spooks? Or is it a lie)

Technologically not that stupid Iran stan was saying they already have a compact implosion design, and that the clandestine nature of their program and constraints(bunkers)have made Iran some of the develop world's best centrifuges.

If you're making plutonium byproducts leak and are detected, but you can do isotopic separation on uranium all you want and it's going to be hard to tell.

  • 1984 — within 2 years, according to Jane's Defence Weekly
  • 1984 — 7 years, per West German intelligence
  • 1992 — 3 years, per Netanyahu
  • 1995 — less than 5 years, per Netanyahu
  • 1996 — 4 years, per Shimon Peres
  • 1998 — within 5 years, per Donald Rumsfeld
  • 1999 — within 5 years, per the Israeli military
  • 2001 — less than 4 years, per the Israeli Minister of Defence
  • 2002 — capability on par with North Korea, per the CIA
  • 2003 — by 2005, per Israeli military
  • 2006 — 16 days, per US State Department
  • 2009 — 6–18 months, per Ehud Barak
  • 2010 — 1–3 years, per Israeli government
  • 2011 — within months, per IAEA
  • 2013 — by 2016, per Israeli intelligence
  • 2013 — 1.9–2.2 months, per Institute for Science and International Security
  • 2014 — 6 months, per Arms Control
  • 2015 — 1.7 months, per Iran Watch
  • 2015 — 45–87 days, per Bipartisan Policy Center
  • 2015 — 3 months, per Washington Institute

Then the nuclear deal was put in place, and estimates seemed to be in agreement that the breakout time would be weeks to months with out the deal, a year with the deal. Then COVID happened and nobody cared.

  • 2021 — a matter of weeks, per Antony Blinken

At this point I'm too lazy to keep checking for additional estimates, but you get the idea.

I think it may have been the lying about thier existing capabilities while looking to expand said capabilities that might've tipped the scales.

To this end it has been the official position of the Isreali government for decades now that a nuclear armed Iran poses an existential threat

I'm curious: is there any other set of countries where this is considered the case? I honestly can't think of another that would have a legitimate concern that some other specific country getting the Bomb would be that big of a concern.

Cuban missile crisis. The USA essentially has it as a rule that no other western hemisphere country will have the bomb. We just don't notice it because it's so thoroughly accepted as obviously true.

Please let me be obnoxiously pedantic and note that at least two more countries have their nukes in the western hemisphere.

Not the person you replied to, but not that obnoxious, since I don't know which ones you're referring to?

The UK and France. Although it’s almost certain that Russia and China have nuclear-armed submarines on patrol in the western hemisphere, too.

I wouldn't be sure about either one of Russia and China. I can't find any indication it has changed since then, but it was late Soviet policy to operate its SSBNs from "bastions", highly guarded areas in friendly waters. The noisy environment this created made the comparatively less stealthy Soviet SSBNs stand out less than they would on their own. On their own, they would have an SSN shadowing them, ready to sink them within minutes of war being declared.

China's SSBNs are pretty crude designs for now, decades behind the west. Though of course, they iterate quickly and can be expected to catch up quite fast, assuming they're getting some help from Russia which is not as far behind the west. And that they have homegrown SSBNs at all is no small feat. But considering how noisy they are, they would not feel comfortable operating them outside of safe areas either, meaning they are believed to also operate on a "bastion" doctrine.

A former submariner I talked to said they mostly shadowed chink subs in the South China Sea.

More comments

Closest facsimile i can think of would be North and South Korea, though that is tempered by the consideration that even though they are both "officially" still in a state of war, both have repeatedly and publicly stated that they are waiting for the other to break the cease-fire, and so the cease-fire has continued to hold.

In contrast Iran has been providing technical and financial support to Hamas and the Houthis as well as taking pot-shots at the other Gulf states for decades now so thier credibility on the whole "we're not looking for trouble" front is basically zero.

Also North Korea has plenty of artillery trained at Seoul regardless, as I understand it. I'm not sure a nuke would actually be more destructive than the conventional capabilities.

Yes, it would. It takes a gigantic amount of shells and a lot of time to level a city.

Several H bomb blasts would accomplish the same at a fraction of a cost.

AP is reporting on it now: Israel attacks Iran’s capital with explosions booming across Tehran

Just to clarify, /pol/ does appear to have a stickied post with multiple Israeli posters claiming to hear sirens, but Reuters, the Associated Press, and Google News do not reveal any reputable articles at this time.

The only way Israel could really hurt Iran is hitting the oil industry. All the HEU (60% HEU enough for 18 warheads, half a ton IAEA said) and much of the centrifugal capacity is under 200m of a mountain, only possible to attack it with thermonuclear bunker busters.

This is supposedly video footage: https://x.com/sentdefender/status/1933316226190639569?t=K-BD155FrVyh7lsXC74wEA&s=19

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