This is a refreshed megathread for any posts on the conflict between (so far, and so far as I know) Hamas and the Israeli government, as well as related geopolitics. Culture War thread rules apply.
The Iranian Tehran Times released an alleged recording of the ADL freaking out about the generational divide in Israel support, as well as Iranian influence in anti-Israel advocacy groups. I do not recommend reading the article because it’s literally Iranian propaganda, but the audio recording is on their page here if you scroll down. Do you think this is legitimate or AI-generated? There’s nothing that struck me as obviously wrong with Greenblatt’s voice. It would be a weird thing to fake, because Iran shouldn’t want to promote the idea that they are behind Western anti-Israel advocacy.
If it’s legitimate, it’s insightful in four ways. The ADL does not believe that support for Israel is Left-Right but instead young-old. The ADL believes that some anti-Zionist organizations are taking their talking points from Iran (eg using the term “Zionist entities”). Iran has access to important meetings of ADL members. And lastly, the ADL has access to the inner circle memorandums of anti-Zionist groups.
because Iran shouldn’t want to promote the idea that they are behind Western anti-Israel advocacy.
Why not? There are millions of Western young people, as you say, who are now openly very anti-Israel and pro-Palestine. Many of these, however, may still either dislike Iran (eg. because of the Hijab protests) or have no opinion of it.
A core goal of Iranian support for Palestinians is for their own propaganda purposes in the regional geopolitical conflict and with the global Ummah, often as a kind of counter to the Saudi message that they’re the guardians of the two holy cities. Extending that audience to Western leftists would be a big win, so attaching themselves publicly to the pro-Palestinian cause in front of them is a good thing in their eyes.
The more people in the West sympathize with Iran, think Iran is ‘actually doing some good things’ or whatever, the more pressure to lift sanctions etc, at least in this logic.
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Notes -
The Iranian Tehran Times released an alleged recording of the ADL freaking out about the generational divide in Israel support, as well as Iranian influence in anti-Israel advocacy groups. I do not recommend reading the article because it’s literally Iranian propaganda, but the audio recording is on their page here if you scroll down. Do you think this is legitimate or AI-generated? There’s nothing that struck me as obviously wrong with Greenblatt’s voice. It would be a weird thing to fake, because Iran shouldn’t want to promote the idea that they are behind Western anti-Israel advocacy.
If it’s legitimate, it’s insightful in four ways. The ADL does not believe that support for Israel is Left-Right but instead young-old. The ADL believes that some anti-Zionist organizations are taking their talking points from Iran (eg using the term “Zionist entities”). Iran has access to important meetings of ADL members. And lastly, the ADL has access to the inner circle memorandums of anti-Zionist groups.
Why not? There are millions of Western young people, as you say, who are now openly very anti-Israel and pro-Palestine. Many of these, however, may still either dislike Iran (eg. because of the Hijab protests) or have no opinion of it.
A core goal of Iranian support for Palestinians is for their own propaganda purposes in the regional geopolitical conflict and with the global Ummah, often as a kind of counter to the Saudi message that they’re the guardians of the two holy cities. Extending that audience to Western leftists would be a big win, so attaching themselves publicly to the pro-Palestinian cause in front of them is a good thing in their eyes.
The more people in the West sympathize with Iran, think Iran is ‘actually doing some good things’ or whatever, the more pressure to lift sanctions etc, at least in this logic.
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