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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

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