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PaperclipPerfector  6d ago (text post)   22890 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of February 23, 2026

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You are nakedly a partisan on this issue and therefore probably emotionally obliged to try and spin this as both a massive blunder and an act of unprovoked evil from Israel

Agreed, given that Iran has been relentlessly attacking Israel (through proxies) for many years now, it's difficult to see how anyone could reasonably see this as "another Israeli war of aggression." To be sure, many people will (unreasonably) see it that way, but those people already hate Israel and there's nothing Israel could do (short of disappearing) which would change their minds.

Will this activity make Israel less popular? For the same reason, I tend to doubt it. But even if it does, it's far more important for Israel to be feared than to be loved.

Sarcastically: if it's fair game for Iran to attack Israel through its proxy militia Hezbollah, then it's fair game for Israel to attack Iran with its proxy American forces.

Iran funding people who shoot at Israel is well within the normal rules. Iran did in fact start it with the shots at Israel, however, and they've been going tit-for-tat for months.

Hasn't everybody and their dog been propping up militias in the region for decades? I'm pretty sure I remember reading a headline about the US fighting the very insurgents they've been funding, for example.

One of my favorite snarky comments about US foreign policy in the Middle East during the early teens went like this:

So if I have this straight, we've armed ISIS to overthrow Assad in Syria because he's a partner with Iran, and we're seeking Iran as a partner for doing air strikes to overthrow ISIS in Iraq, and now we need to partner with ISIS to overthrow the Iranian-puppet insurgency in Yemen.

I think that was during the ISIS saga, and it was that the Army and Air Force backed different militias materially

Hasn't everybody and their dog been propping up militias in the region for decades?

I would imagine that's true for some definition of "propping up" and "militia" and "everybody" But I doubt Israel has been doing what Iran has been doing, namely having an organization like Hezbollah, which is effectively controlled by Iran, to engage in terrorism against Israel.

But in any event, assuming for the sake of argument that, as you say, everyone and their dog has been propping up militias in the region for decades, the claim on the table is that the recent strike constitutes a "war of aggression" by Israel. To me, "war of aggression" means military activity which is substantially unprovoked against an enemy which poses no substantial threat. Pretty clearly this was NOT a war of aggression by Israel.

But I doubt Israel has been doing what Iran has been doing, namely having an organization like Hezbollah, which is effectively controlled by Iran, to engage in terrorism against Israel.

Ahem.

"Thus, amid this bid to impair Abbas, Hamas was upgraded from a mere terror group to an organization with which Israel held indirect negotiations via Egypt, and one that was allowed to receive infusions of cash from abroad."

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