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PaperclipPerfector  4mo ago (text post)   27900 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of June 30, 2025

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Iran could threaten the use of a salted bomb on the grounds of the Temple Mount, maximizing radioactive contamination. The ultra-religious have enormous political influence in Isael. This would act as deterrence in a way that targeting a major city would not, while minimizing loss of life. Al-Aqsa isn’t super important for Shia Muslims, but the Temple Mount actually needs to be the place of construction for the Third Temple.

The whole city is not within the limits of the Temple Mount, and nuclear weapons are made in different magnitudes. So this could conceivably be accomplished with negligible loss of life.

Intentionally bombing a mosque would be unacceptable even if it wasn’t a particularly important world cultural heritage site. And like @No_one was saying, it would lead to immediate massive nuclear retaliation by Israel and probably also by Pakistan and the United States.

So, they could do virtually zero damage, mortally offend most of the entire western world by deliberately targetting a religious site, and get properly nuked in return? The offense to deterrence ratio on that plan does not pencil.

Nuclear threats are for deterrence. You want the other country afraid to risk it. Israel’s highly religious minority cannot risk the grounds of the Temple Mount becoming contaminated, because it is unequivocally essential for their end of times prophecies. The entire religion is predicated on the Messiah returning and the Temple being rebuilt on these grounds. Some Haredi even believe that the Shechina is especially found at the Western Wall:

The real reason why the Western Wall was not destroyed was not the one that counts midrash – the reality is that the general assigned to demolish it was incapable of doing so. O midrash reveals that the Western Wall remained standing thanks to an oath from G-d promising its eternal survival. And, in fact, it teaches that the Divine Presence never withdrew from the Western Wall

When nuclear weapons are being launched, no one cares about offending someone’s sensibilities (lol). The threat may be enough to cause the ultra religious population of Israel to take a more diplomatic approach to Iran, unless their foolishness is the thing that causes the impossibility of their religious prophecy. That would be a big deal. An example of how serious they treat this stuff — the infamous tunnel under Chabad in NYC was to fulfill Rebbe Schneerson’s wish to attach two buildings together. So the literal world Chabad headquarters built a secret tunnel underneath Manhattan to connect the two buildings, and rioted when the police put an end to it, in order to fulfill the will of the Rebbe.

Iran should obviously see their current predicament as one of civilizational survival. Are they going to surrender to Israel for the rest of time, having no ability to ever fight back because of the pace of technological development, or are they going to try to retain sovereignty over their land? I know that if I were Iran, i would be nuke-maxxing and doing whatever it takes to ensure I have sovereignty in my country. Even if it is “offensive”

The entire religion is predicated on the Messiah returning and the Temple being rebuilt on these grounds.

Would the Messiah not just remove the fallout? If anything, it'd be a pretty good indicator that it was time to rebuild, plus now there's no existing competition for the site.

And radiation actually maps pretty well to existing divine wrath, specifically the Ark of the Covenant curses from 1 Samuel.

But after they had brought it to Gath, the hand of the Lord was against the city, causing a very great panic; he struck the inhabitants of the city, both young and old, so that tumors broke out on them.

... For there was a deathly panic throughout the whole city. The hand of God was very heavy there; those who did not die were stricken with tumors, and the cry of the city went up to heaven.

Why would it be impossible to rebuild the temple on Temple Mount if it's nuked? Just have the builders wear hazard suits.

Because if it’s rebuilt it’s like a whole thing. Sacrifices have to resume daily etc. And just the idea of the holiest of holies land becoming contaminated is a dissonant thought.

Should be possible to slaughter a calf in a rad suit -- the L*** helps those who help themselves, y'know?

It's mostly a film plot thing and also a way to get nuked. What would be the point ?

but the Temple Mount actually needs to be the place of construction for the Third Temple.

I've got a gut feeling that blasting Temple Mount into a shallow crater would make most Jews horrified but secretly relieved.
They've been Jews this long and had God wanted them to rebuild the temple, there'd have been a sign.

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