Comment on A woman tried to call her mom in Iran. A robotic voice answered the phone
SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca 1 day agoI mostly agree with you. Sorry if it seems like I’m nitpicking, but you said a lot there (and that’s not a bad thing) so I’m just breaking it down a little.
Both sides have legitimate reasons to hate
I don’t think hate is ever legitimate.
neither side seems interested in murdering everyone on the other side
Iranians are encourages to regularly chant “death to Israel” regularly. I don’t feel comfortable trusting that it’s just propaganda and there’s no intent there. We’ve been burned a lot lately with because people voted for Trump thinking “he’s just saying he wants to deport millions of people, he won’t really do that”. Sometimes the crazy things people say is just propaganda, sometimes it’s what they really mean. Having trust that an authoritarian is lying seems unwise.
And if I think long term, some young person in Iran chanting “death to Israel” today may someday in a position of power in the future. Bad things could happen someday if a true believer gets into power. Especially if Iran has a nuclear weapon on that day. So I understand why Israel is doing everything they can to prevent Iran from having nuclear weapons. It’s life or death for them.
I also understand why they want a regime change in Iran. Even if their nuclear weapons program is gone today, they could rebuild it and in a decade or so we’re doing this all over again. But a regime change is something Iranians will have to fight for, we all know regime changes imposed by foreign countries don’t work out well. No way to know if that will happen, that’s beyond anyone’s control outside of Iran.
The problem is that most Muslim-majority countries don’t see Israel as legitimate, because it was created arbitrarily by western powers by taking land away from Muslims.
And that’s the problem. That’s irrelevant now because most of the population of Israel was born there. I’ve met Israelis and they weren’t particularly religious. Israel isn’t some “Holy Land” to them it’s the place where they were born. People have a right to live where they were born. Wanting to restore the ethnic makeup of a region to conform to how it was in a history book is fascistic thinking. Now the Israelis I’ve met were just the ones that travel so obviously there are different kinds people in Israel that do think it’s a holy mission to makes settlements and all of the bullshit. But the wrongs that have been done with the settlements doesn’t justify massacring villages or anything else Iran’s terrorist proxies are doing.
This hatred of Israel isn’t good for other countries in the middle east. Hate is the easiest emotion for authoritarians to manipulate. This results in people being more acting of authoritarian regimes so long as the do some display of attacking “the evil enemy”.
I hope people can get put aside their hatred long enough to see the destruction it’s caused. Hating Israel isn’t improving anything for people in Gaza or anywhere else in the Middle East.
sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 1 day ago
Eh, I think it’s reasonable to hate someone who is actively trying to kill you, your loved ones, or trying to ruin your life. That doesn’t justify murder or anything, but I certainly wouldn’t fault someone in that situation.
There is intent behind the propaganda, but it’s not to genocide Israelis or Jews, it’s to destroy the Israeli state.
Agreed, and I think the same is true for Iran as well. They’re a regional and global pariah, and a nuclear weapon would do a lot to protect the regime. I don’t think Iran should ever have a nuclear weapon, but I also don’t think Israel should be allowed to just destroy their infrastructure.
I had an Iranian coworker, and they said Iran just needs a strong push and it’ll splinter, since there are many powerful groups that dislike the current regime. I hope that’s what happens with this offensive by Israel, but that doesn’t mean I support Israel’s attack here. I think there are other ways to weaken Iran, and I’d prefer to go that route instead of killing innocents.
Agreed. But it will absolutely continue while Israel controls Jerusalem and Palestinians don’t have a country. And Israel currently isn’t willing to budge on either.
SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca 23 hours ago
Hatred is a failing, not something that should empathized with or rationalized. We know there’s situations that will make people hate, but it’s like someone abused as a child becoming an abuser as a parent. We know it happens but it’s not a thing where we should empathize with the abuser and rationalize their actions so it seems reasonable or legitimate. Sure I try to understand hatred, but in a similar way as I try to understand mental illness. Something that needs treatment, not something that should be spread out of a weird sense of empathy.
“Either you must choose ‘gradual death’ in hellish life in shelters or save your lives from the 24-hour missile rain and flee as soon as possible from the lands usurped by your ancestors, so that you may survive.” iranwire.com/…/142321-irgc-says-it-fired-2000-kil…
I guess more propaganda and not intent? This is part of Operation “True Promise” They’ve been promising to wipe Israel off the map… so more propaganda.
Iran keeps promising to ethnic cleansing of Jews, and every thing they say seems to be “seriously, me mean it, it’s we’re making are promises come true now.”
And even if you’re sure that you trust them to be lying, what about the potential for someone that grew up with this propaganda and is a true believer to someday take power?
Hamas was in power in Gaza for a much shorter period of time and the indoctrinated young men to be capable of doing some extremely horrific things in that time. I’m sorry but the propaganda isn’t a nothing burger whether you believe it or not. Some people will believe it and may do horrible things in the future.
The regime will immediately start rebuilding their nuclear program if they remain in power. The infrastructure helps keep the regime in power.
Well prepare yourself, the Ayatollah will use violence to try to remain in power, and that could be a really violent conflict. The Syrian civil war was horrific, over half a million people killed, torture dungeons, mass killings, really terrible things. Hopefully a potential Iranian civil war wouldn’t be so bloody, and maybe with air support for a rebel group it’ll be more like the Libyan civil war. But that’s still tens of thousands dead and Libya is still in a mess today.
I think all of the other ways have been tried, it’s not just Israel that would welcome a regime change in Iran. I don’t think military action should be a thing anyone should be supporting (it’s not a sports team) but sometimes military action is necessary. It would’ve been better if the JCPOA not been cancelled by Trump and the Ayatollah just decided to quit being supreme leader and let Iran decide things democratically. But that’s not the world we live in.
sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 22 hours ago
The intent seems pretty clear to me: leave Israel so Israel ceases to exist. They’re not saying, “we’ll kill you wherever you flee,” that would be genocide, they’re saying, “as long as the Israeli state exists, we will attack it and make life suck for everyone who chooses to stay.”
I think if they had the chance, they’d make good on that threat.
I never claimed the propaganda was a nothing burger, I claimed it’s directed at the Israeli state, not Israelis or Jews themselves. Even if Israel were completely secular, there would still be opposition, because Muslim extremists don’t care what religion occupies the Holy Land, as long as it’s not Muslim, it is the same.
Agreed 100%, which is why Israel’s strike is dumb. The power proper solution is regime change, and giving the people there a reason to support their government isn’t the way to achieve that.
Unfortunately, I think that’s the best possible outcome in Iran. Iran used to be prosperous when they were friendly with the west, and I’d love for them to do so again. But that can only happen with a regime change.
The JCPOA was a step in the right direction, a D we should’ve followed it up with trade deals. IMO, the best way to fight against extremism is through prosperity and trade, so we should be making very attractive deals with countries in exchange for not having or eliminating nuclear weapons (prosperity in exchange for peace). Unfortunately, that’s impossible with Trump in power, and I doubt Iran’s leadership is interested after the US broke the trade deal.
SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca 21 hours ago
“Either you must choose ‘gradual death’ in hellish life in shelters or save your lives from the 24-hour missile rain and flee as soon as possible from the lands usurped by your ancestors, so that you may survive.”
I think the use of the word “ancestors” makes it clear they’re talking to a people of a specific ancestry ie. an ethnicity. They are telling Jews to leave or they will be killed. This is ethnic cleansing. And lets not be so naive that Iran wants Arab-Israelis to leave. They stated that they want ethnic cleansing.
So the original plan 1948 plan of Jerusalem being internationally controlled and open to all religions isn’t acceptable? Well they are extremists, but they extremists like this can’t have any military power because they’re just going to do endless war since they’ll never get what they want.
If the infrastructure helps keep the regime in power (like systems to monitor people’s activities) then why would want it to remain in place? If Iran can’t see a gathering of people on security cameras, that helps a resistance movement, doesn’t it?
It was never going to be a fast thing. This regime took diplomats hostage which is the biggest no-no in all of diplomatic relations. It’s hard to improve things through diplomacy when you can’t trust a nation enough to have diplomats set foot in their country. Also they’d need to stop their “death to Israel, death to America” stuff. Kinda hard to trust a country that does that. Sure trade increases prosperity, but it also increases access to technology which helps their military. You’d look pretty stupid if you started trade with a country calling for your death, then they used that to improve their military to attack you. Also they’re an oppressive so there’s ethical issue with enriching an oppressive regime. Yeah we enrich the Saudis who are oppressive, but only because we’re stupidly dependent on their oil and don’t have any choice. When we have a choice should we enrich an oppressive regime hoping trade will make it less oppressive? Doesn’t seem like trade with China made their regime less oppressive.
It’s not a given that trade and diplomacy could be improved with this regime, a lot of that was up to them.
Anyway that’s all moot now.