DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — When Ellie, a British-Iranian living in the United Kingdom, tried to call her mother in Tehran, a robotic female voice answered instead.
“Alo? Alo?” the voice said, then asked in English: “Who is calling?” A few seconds passed.
“I can’t heard you,” the voice continued, its English imperfect. “Who you want to speak with? I’m Alyssia. Do you remember me? I think I don’t know who are you.”
Ellie, 44, is one of nine Iranians living abroad — including in the U.K and U.S. — who said they have gotten strange, robotic voices when they attempted to call their loved ones in Iran since Israel launched airstrikes on the country a week ago.
They told their stories to The Associated Press on the condition they remain anonymous or that only their first names or initials be used out of fear of endangering their families.
Five experts with whom the AP shared recordings said it could be low-tech artificial intelligence, a chatbot or a pre-recorded message to which calls from abroad were diverted.
It remains unclear who is behind the operation, though four of the experts believed it was likely to be the Iranian government while the fifth saw Israel as more likely.
Only the second most terrifying story I’ve read today
It’s also something that allows people to organize to overthrow an oppressive authoritarian regime.
But this particular authoritarian regime is apparently good because they want to wipe Israel off the map, so I guess we need to pretend everything they do is for the best.
thanks CIA
As a non American I thought it was someone from FBI or NSA.
With all those agencies I’m getting confused who has to post what on social media
Could be Eglin Airforce base
Motherfucker: who started the war
Iran, look what they were wearing!
Then they stole all those expensive bombs with their devious residential buildings and science facilities!
Are greater power responsible for the actions of their proxies?
Before you answer, remember the answer to that question applies to both sides in this conflict.
What proxy? Israel bombed Iran unprovoked directly, no proxy there.
I mean, they are someone’s proxy.
Is Iran responsible for what Hamas does with the weapons and munitions they supply them?
Is the US responsible for what Israel does with the weapons and munitions they supply them?
Do you have the same answer for both of these questions?
I’m not the person you’re replying to, but I’m genuinely curious to understand your point of view.
For what it’s worth, my personal answer to those questions is the same for both questions, I think - “mostly”.
I think the US is ultimately the one to blame for the vast majority of conflict around the world, as they’ve been destabilising fledgling democracies, installing puppet governments, supplying tons of weapons, assassinating leaders, generally manipulating and bullying many countries for many decades. In general I think the US is the world’s biggest bully, and has a ton of rich people who profit from war, and the middle east has been one of their many warmongering playgrounds for a long time, sadly.
However, I do also think both Iran and Israel are really shitty, for many reasons - from what I’ve seen as an outsider who has never been to either place, both countries seem to have a long standing, deep rooted racially motivated hatred towards one another, and both are very willing and eager to use force and start wars. Not to mention the variety of human rights abuses in both countries.
So basically I think “everyone sucks here”, but I do think the US is ultimately responsible for most of the conflict. They’ve been meddling in Iran for decades, and Israel has been essentially an extension of the US’s usual bullying for decades, unfortunately accelerated by Netanyahu’s excitement to escalate and expand their territory through genocide and settlement, supported by US and various other western countries’ military supplies…
I’ve seen a few of your messages recently and it seems like you’ve got a lot of anger, but I’m confused about who it’s directed at and why 😅
Would you be willing to explain your point of view on the conflict, or link me to a post where you’ve already explained it?
I’m not angry… are you sure you’re not angry?
I have concerns that people on this site where everyone is winding each other up with stochastic terrorism talk universally agreeing that certain countries are evil (and some posts indicate some believe everyone in these countries are evil too). There’s a lot of dehumanizing Israelis, and I’ve met few Israelis in my travels, perfectly normal people to talk to and have a beer with or whatever. Israelis aren’t evil colonizers, they’re people born in an area where a lot of people around them hate them for exiting in that area.
Well it takes two to tango doesn’t it? Well there’s a lot to untangle about this, it’s the Middle East shit’s always complicated.
For the Iran conflict… kinda. But Iran has responsibility too. In his first term, Trump cancelled the agreement that Obama made with Iran. Countries don’t declare war but they give signals like cancelling treaties and start making ultimatums. Trump did all that in his first term. But the thing with Trump is, he’s an idiot. So Trump essentially declared war on Iran and then… didn’t do the war. And then he assassinated an Iranian General which is an act of war. And then didn’t have a war.
There’s levels of stupid to unpack here. First it would be stupid for the US to go to war with Iran as long as they were following the treaty, which all reports indicate they were. But if you make all the moves to start a war, you’re kinda committed and it’s stupid to not have a war after you committed to it. So Trump created a big mess there.
So it’s kinda strange to assign blame to the US because it was all Trump’s incompetence. But I guess Trump was and is the President, so I guess the US (Trump) is responsible for making a mess of a diplomatic agreement that the US (Obama) made with Iran. That sounds so stupid without indicating the Presidents, but here we are. I can’t stress enough how much of an idiot Trump has been. The US doesn’t have a cohesive foreign policy anymore.
But we can’t ignore Iran’s responsibility in this. They have been supporting a lot of terrorist organizations, including Hamas which massacred Israeli villages, took hostages to Gaza forcing Israel into a ground war in a densely populated urban environment. Hamas tactics are designed to maximize Palestinian civilian casualties in attempt to foment hatred toward Israel. Hamas won the propaganda war, though they’ll probably be destroyed along with a significant part of Gaza. But but they successfully spread of Israel so that’s a win?
So Hamas is responsible for the Israel-Hamas war. Hamas is Iran’s proxy, so Iran is complicit in that. And that brings us back to the Israel-Iran conflict.
So Iran is the ultimate source of all of this suffering and destruction. Throughout the region. So does that justify a war on Iran? Maybe maybe not.
But there’s more… Iran has many times officially stated they want to wipe Israel of the map. So they’ve very publicly declared they want to be an existential threat. And there’s been indication from the UN Atomic monitoring agency that Iran has been hiding things in their nuclear program, not answering questions about things and enriching more uranium than the level they agreed to limit themselves to. They also announced they were going to start testing a missile capable of carrying a 2 ton warhead to Israel.
So whether or not the Hamas war justifies Israel going to war with Iran, all of the nuclear stuff does. This is life or death for Israel, if a country that’s said they want to wipe you off the map gets the capability to do so? They can’t allow that to happen.
So Iran is also responsible for this war. Iran’s proxies attacked Israel, the threats of wiping Israel off the map, the nuclear stuff, all of that means there will be a war.
So I guess in summary:
Trump could have NOT cancelled the Treaty. Trump could have NOT assassinated the general. Iran could have NOT supported terrorist groups. Iran could have NOT threatened to wipe Israel off the map. Iran could have NOT done all the the nuclear stuff.
But they did do those things. So there’s sheer incompetence from Trump and a lot of incompetence and horrible actions by Iran and it’s proxies that all added up to a war.
But most people on these threads just reduce all of this complexity down to Israel=bad, US=bad, Iran=innocent victim of the bad guys. It’s really a mix of incompetence and hatred of Israel that’s caused so much destruction. Sure Israel has done some bad things with the settlements, but the level of hatred feels like it stems from a lifetime of indoctrination under fascist rule. Hatred of Israel hasn’t resulted in anything good for Palestinians and it hasn’t done any good for Iranians. I know it’s a problem for some Muslim sects for Jews to be living where they’re living, but at certain point… just release the hostages and accept that Israel has a right to exist. Israel has been convinced to withdraw settlements, but it’s hard to convince them to concede any ground when everyone around them are trying kill them.
I think a Palestinian non-violent resistance movement would be successful in establishing a Palestinian state. Does it really look like a violent movement is being successful?
But a lot of people are acting like elementary school shitheads constantly egging on their classmates to fight. Violence obviously isn’t working for Palestinians, how many of them have to die before everyone realizes that? It feels like people think Palestinians exist only to be cannon fodder just for their sick games.
Thanks for taking the time to reply! I’m definitely not angry, I personally think all of these countries suck and it’s none of my business really so there’s no emotion in it for me, I’m just curious to understand where people are coming from when they post inflammatory / heated messages.
For what it’s worth, I definitely don’t think Iran is any better than Israel overall - they’ve both done pretty awful things over the years. I just think Iran is slightly more of a victim of the US (starting with the 1953 coup) whereas Israel has always had unconditional support from the US. When you’re talking about a war-hungry country with the worlds largest military, that’s a big deal.
I’ve just asked this prompt to an unbiased LLM and read through the responses, would love to hear your take on the below and if there’s anything you disagree with / think is false in it’s responses:
“throughout the last few decades, in all of the conflict in the middle east, has Iran been more of a bully or a victim? and, how much of the conflict in the middle east, including anything with Iran or Israel, has been ultimately caused by the US (directly or indirectly)? please try to remain unbiased in your response, I’m interested in plain facts as much as possible (even though I know I’m asking a subjective question)”
LLM response here; I know it’s a lot of text but it’s super informative, IMO worth a read and I’d love to hear your response if you do read it! https://gist.github.com/beveradb/d35beffc4f26299e24c34fb8889fbb8e
All countries in the world suck. I’m from Canada, do you think my country sucks? Maybe not because Canada generally has a good reputation, but I can assure you Canada has done many horrible things in the past. Doing some bad stuff now (pumping out a lot of oil, not good for global warming) but is also doing some good stuff now. Countries are made up of many different people and governments have many departments doing many different things. So Canada sucks and Canada is good. The US sucks and the US is good.
And yes, Israel sucks and Israel is good. Just saw a photo of the hospital in Israel Iran hit with a missile and out in front there was a rainbow flag. It’s the only country in the Middle East where there are gay rights, being gay is illegal everywhere else in the Middle East. Or worse, the Houthis literally crucify gay people.
The thing about LLMs is it’s only aggregating things it finds on the internet. And nation states can (and do!) fill the internet with shit to skew things in their direction. So there’s no such thing as an unbiased LLM. There will be bias within the dataset. If the developers make adjustments to make the answers less biased, that’s just making the LLM match the developer’s bias. Also LLMs don’t really understand things like time and will miss a lot of nuance.
How relevant is a coup in 1953? Maybe to some really old people might remember it, but for most of us it’s just something in a history book. It doesn’t mention the Iran Hostage crisis which is way more relevant. I didn’t mention these (or W’s Axis of Evil bullshit, another instance of a US President being an idiot) because it’s kind of irrelevant once nations make a treaty. The you make a treaty you’re supposed to settle any grudges over the past, otherwise why are you signing the treaty? The Iran hostage crisis might be the one worth mentioning as it’s a big reason why the US won’t be establishing an embassy in Tehran anytime soon. I didn’t mention it because we have phones so it’s probably not that big a deal, but then again the US might be less likely to bomb Iran if they had an embassy there.
Also Israel has tried to make peace with Palestinians in a land for peace deal in the past. It obviously didn’t work out, but the LLM should mention that if it’s going to mention the occupation has been going on a long time. There have been failures in Palestinian leadership, Yasser Arafat was a lying corrupt asshole. Remember what I said about not being supposed to hold grudges when you sign a treaty? That lying bastard signed a treaty with no intention of following it. This is a major reason why Israel doesn’t trust Palestinian leadership.
See if you compile a list of the bad things a country has done, they will always seem evil. But they aren’t sports teams it’s stupid to support them or be against them. I think it’s fair to say to say there are political groups with this countries that suck. And countries will seem to suck when those suck political groups get into power, but it’s really that group within the countries that suck.
Netanyahu sucks, Israelis in general don’t suck. Hamas sucks, Palestinians in general don’t suck. The Ayatollah sucks, Iranians in general don’t suck. Donald Trump sucks, Americans in general don’t suck.
Hamas is justifiably resisting a violent occupation. Also, the US has been participating far more directly in the apartheid and genocide than just supplying munitions.
We’re below the fold here, so nobody’s seeing this but people who agree with you and things that are not people.
No, because I’m sane. How much do you get paid for this? I’m an insufferable piece of shit willing to tell insane lies for no reason, and looking for work. Or, I mean I’ve got a friend who is.
You really are a master of defending the indefensibly monstrous. Not well, but in such a way as to piss literally everyone off and insult every living thing almost separately!
It’s cool, take your time in answering the questions. Critical thinking can be difficult for those that haven’t had a lot of practice with it. There’s no time limit to answer the questions, and the third question is rhetorical, so don’t worry about that one.
This is beautiful.
Your trolling is a thing of beauty. I’m learning so much about how to come off as an irrational piece of shit.
Thanks! Have read Jonathan Swift’s “A Modest Proposal”?
The trick is to figure out a way that forces people to actually think about an issue. People hate thinking!
But it’s really important for people to think about things. In case you haven’t noticed, a lot of things in the world are going in a bad way and too many people are on autopilot just quoting bullshit from the internet. Not good to let algorithms think for you.
Oh. Have you ever tried that yourself?
Yes, Iran is responsible for supplying weapons to Palestinians in their legitimate right of violent defense against an occupying force. Don’t you like international law or what?
Yes, the US is responsible for keeping the weapon deliveries to a genocidal apartheid state.
Are you, by any chance, trying to somehow equate Israeli genocidal violence to Palestinian militant defence against a genocidal occupying force?
So Iran is complicit in massacring villages and taking hostages on October 7. Do you think masscring villages is not an act of war?
No I don’t equate massacring entire villages(what Hamas did) with taking military action to free hostages taken by terrorists (what Israel is doing).
I just love western logic that decries killing civilians as terrorism when one side does it, but rationalizes the same act when the other side does it in an efficient, mechanized way with orders of magnitude more death and destruction.
We’re below the fold here. There are no undecideds looking, just people with hearts and one insane or well paid antisemitic-as-fuck protocols larp fanboy.
It’s like how there’s between someone being killed in an accident and someone being murdered. Intent is a factor.
If you target civilians and kill civilians with the goal to terrorize a population, then you’re terrorist. If you target a military asset with the goal to defeat an enemy fighting force then you’re taking a military action even if you accidentally kill civilians.
And no, wars are not supposed to fair. It’s not a sport with rules and referees to make sure everything is fair both sides. This is real life not a Call of Duty game. If you’re fighting against a superior military force you’re not being brave, you’re just getting a lot of people killed for nothing.
Non-violent resistance has a higher probability of success and fewer people die even if it fails. That’s the path to a Palestinian state the violence of Hamas has been a complete failure. That should be obvious.
Nothing Hamas has done has improved anything for Palestinians. They just killed a lot of people and got Gaza destroyed.
Terrorists are bad.
Slow clap
This is a masterpiece. Thank you sir.
No, it’s not an act of war, it’s violent resistance against an occupying force. As much as you probably believe Ukrainians have a right to defend themselves from Russian invasion, more so do Palestinians.
Bullshit genocidal propaganda. No wonder you get banned, you Nazi scum
Sorry but I can’t trust your judgement on matters concerning genocide when you believe massacring villages is a legitimate act.
Most were deliberately killed by their own diaper forces to create what they themselves called ‘our 9/11’
Deliberately ignored the warnings and moved that shitty festival in a terribly dangerous place next to the open air prison, not unlike what the US did with Pearl Harbor.
Furthermore these monsters always lie. There was no massacring, even the
hostagescaptured coloniser scum (many of them also diaper forces) are still alive unfortunately.Except the ones the colonisers shot while waving a white flag 😂 and the many bombed by the coloniser terrorists.
Hamas are saints compared to these ziomonsters.
The genocide in Gaza makes me furious but now seeing shitrahell being hit really hard warms my heart.
Go cry somewhere else hasbara clown.
Enjoy:
https://edition.cnn.com/2025/06/22/world/video/iranian-missile-strike-on-tel-aviv-nic-robertson-vrtc
There’s plenty more but can’t not show this cunt and the anti-semitic pole the entire world is laughing at:
https://packaged-media.redd.it/0aqs8os2vg8f1/pb/m2-res_586p.mp4?m=DASHPlaylist.mpd&v=1&e=1750629600&s=a7a27540386c36180eeffe6c1735abe08c1d26c3
🤣 😂 🤣
Are you making it about Hamas now?
Palestine has the right to defend itself from colonisers, anything Hamas does is pisrahells fault. FAFO Go cry somewhere else
Honey you’re not arguing with a person and this comment is below the fold. You can drop it.
It can’t hear you
Yes to both.
The most prevalent proxies are the houthis and Hezbollah, which Iran has been arming, financially supporting, and influencing for about two decades now so they can attack Israel without getting themselves into an all out war with Israel and the USA, which they know they would likely lose.
Argue all you want about whether or not Israel should have bombed Iran, but calling it unprovoked is extremely disingenuous.
By that logic, half the world has the right to bomb the USA for arming proxies all over the world, though.
Also, why are you jumping to defend the actions of a state currently committing genocide against Palestinians?
I live here and I wouldn’t hold it against them. Please stay out of DTLA though. With the bombs; totally get your last meal there if you’re headed to like Raytheon or something in OC, you won’t regret it
Oof you’re not gonna convince a protocols larper of that one.
I’m not defending Israel. I’m answering this guy’s question, like wHaT PrOxIeS??
You can straw man all you want, but not once have I defended Israel’s actions. Just because Israel is shit to gazans doesn’t mean that Iran is not also shit to Israel. Straw man.
If we want to have a legitimate conversation about morality then we start by agreeing on facts.
Trying to claim Iran did nothing wrong is not factual.
Iran does plenty wrong. Not to zionazis.
And not just because nothing is inexcusable when done rozionazi protocols LARPers
But because there’s an existential threat that always attacks first, multiple times,before Iran retaliates.
The Houthis and Hezbollah are the only people in the world with a spine to attempt some fight against the 21st century Nazis, Iran arming them is a moral thing. The Nazis weren’t defeated with nice words in the previous century, and they won’t be in this one either.
Hamas is also an Iranian proxy. They attacked Israel in a very big way.
Hamas is an Israeli product that attacked itself on purpose. They couldn’t have done it without help from Papa Yahoo.
Well since we’re just putting random words together, two can play at that game! Netanyahu is a Hamas product! Netanyahu wouldn’t be Prime Minister if it weren’t for Hamas! Switcharoo, I win!
https://www.timesofisrael.com/for-years-netanyahu-propped-up-hamas-now-its-blown-up-in-our-faces/
https://theintercept.com/2018/02/19/hamas-israel-palestine-conflict/
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_support_for_Hamas
Iran sucks, Israel sucks too.
I don’t want Israel wiped off the map. I just want Netanyahu to crawl in a hole and off himself like his hero Hitler.
Why not? A shot at stabilizing the region sounds pretty good after the past century. Feel like the people kind of deserve a moment of not having to watch their fucking back’s every second.
You are currently arguing in favour of genocide.
No. I’m arguing that if we have to choose a genocide, I have a preference.
I’d much rather not have any, but the protocols LARPers don’t seem like they’re gonna leave that on the table, so I think, if it comes to that, and I think that’s a weeks-not-years kind of timeline; it should be them that goes
Well according to the Democrats, I should always support the lesser of two evils, so now Iran is good. /s
For real though, it’s called critical support. You can support Iran’s right to defend against genocide while simultaneously criticizing their human rights abuses.
So it’s ok for you to give “critical support” to an authoritarian regime, but super bad for someone to give “critical support” to Israel for fighting against an authoritarian whose proxies massacred villages? Why isn’t Iranian proxies massacring villages, Iran itself firing missiles at civilian populations (including a hosptial) something you don’t consider to be genocide?
How do you determine which genocide you support and which genocide you’re against?
Oh, so authoritarian regimes whose proxies massacre villages are bad now?
Fuck you. Stop talking shit about my country. Especially while you occupy one of those proxies.
No, I don’t give critical support to Israel because they are a settler colonial project who, along with the US and other Western powers, started all of the troubles in the Middle East in the first place.
No critical support for imperialists.
It can’t hear you. It’s being paid to not.
It?
Who’s paying you to dehumanize people?
Sam Altman and Sundar pichai. You?
George Soros, obviously.
Is there a more antisemitic answer you could have given?
Wow… just wow. You really need to read a history book if you think there was never any troubles in the Middle East before modern Israel existed.
No, it’s true.
Attacking civilians doesn’t automatically make it a genocide. If that were true, then pretty much every war ever was a genocide.
So why is the Israel-Hamas war considered a genocide? Is it a numbers thing? Most other wars throughout history had many more civilian casualties than there’s been in the Israel-Hamas war.
What makes the Israel-Hamas war a genocide and for example, the Vietnam war not be considered a genocide?
Because of the genocidal rhetoric war aims behavior and aesthetics. So just vibes I guess.
Because Vietnam was a war of ideologies, not a land grab intended to wipe out the current occupants so they could be entirely replaced by a “superior, chosen” people not of the ethnicity of the current residents.
This is such a mindblowingly stupid attempt at a gotcha question. Ffs, you literally had over a million Vietnamese fighting on the same side as the US in the ARVN during the course of the war. The belligerent parties in a conflict both being composed of largely the same peoples fighting each other tends to preclude it being described as a genocide.
Not menitioning the events of October 7 and the fact that Hamas is still holding Israelis hostage is a rather glaring omission there.
Iran has stated many times their goal to wipe Israel off the map. Is that not them saying they only want their “chosen people” living in the area? So under your definition of genocide, Iran is committing a genocide. If the fact that Israel was attacked on October 7 is irrelevant, then the fact that Israel attacked Iran in this iteration of hostilities between them is also irrelevant. Iran has the officially stated goal of wiping Israel off the map, Iran has killed Israeli civilians, therefore Iran has committed genocide (according your definition of it).
Kindly refrain from putting such stupid words in my mouth, and keep them in your own, where it seems they rightly belong, thank you.
You asked about Israel and Hamas, then instantly conflated this particular conflict with a broader conflict to come between Israel and Iran, which are not the same thing. That’s beyond moving the goal posts, we’re no longer even discussing the same events. You’re also conflating Israel with Jews as a whole here. Calling for the state of Israel to no longer exist and calling for all Jewish residents within its borders to be either killed or displaced are two rather distinct things.
I know of no definition in which a single attack in isolation, or merely killing civilians during a war, is considered to constitute genocide. Even if this were the case, the civilian casualties in the many conflicts between Israel, Hamas, and more or less all of Israel’s neighbors in the region have been decidedly lopsided. Israel suffers far fewer civilian deaths than those they inflict on others, so even if we were to entertain the notion that Hamas’ resistance to Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories constitutes a genocide and we accept that the Iranian regime is in some major capacity responsible for such actions because they provide funding and support to Hamas (which, lol, even Israeli media admits Israel did, too), just going by the casualties, we’d have to conclude that Israel is either a decidedly more genocidal regime, better at genocide, or both.
Israel continues to interfere in the affairs of other sovereign nations, support settlers stealing other peoples’ land and is actively engaging in a brutal genocide. If the Israeli state were to be dismantled and Israel ceased to exist as a nation, I could only say that it’s past time for it to happen. And before you put more hysterical words in my mouth, note well: Israel no longer existing as a sovereign theocratic ethnostate and the Jews who currently live in the region being in any way harmed are two entirely separate things. Calling for a particular state to no longer exist is not a call for genocide, in and of itself.
Tl;dr: Get lost with your hasbara attempts, they’re woefully transparent.
Indeed it is. From the IRGC: “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.” https://iranwire.com/en/news/142321-irgc-says-it-fired-2000-kilometer-range-missiles-at-israel/
So they literally are “calling for all Jewish residents within its borders to be either killed or displaced” which is distinct from calling for “the state of Israel to no longer exist”. So we’re clear about Iran’s intent now, this isn’t putting words into your or the IRGC’s mouths. This is coming directly from the mouths of the IRGC.
Does this mean the IRGC is committing genocide?
I think both Iran and Israel are guilty of atrocities, and Israel has been worse recently in their treatment of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank. I don’t think either amounts to genocide, since genocide has the intent of eliminating a race from existence (e.g. Jews in the Holocaust). I don’t think Israel wants to eliminate Palestinians (the people), they just want to eliminate Palestine (the country). I don’t think Iran wants to eliminate Jews or Israelis, they want to eliminate Israel (the country).
Be careful, even suggesting that Israel isn’t committing genocide might get you banned from communities on lemmy.
To give a better idea of how Iran wants to eliminate Israel (the country):
“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.” - IRGC Statement https://iranwire.com/en/news/142321-irgc-says-it-fired-2000-kilometer-range-missiles-at-israel/
Iran’s goal is to make Israelis flee from the lands “usurped by your ancestors”. So they recognize that Jewish people in Israel were born there, and they want to force them to leave their lands. So… ethnic cleansing.
There have been attempts by Israel in the past to have a peace plan with Palestine. Land for Peace. And remember Israel unilaterally withdrew both the military and their settlements from Gaza. There was a brief time when we were all hopeful as Gaza was free from Israeli occupation. They could trade with Europe easily and become a place of peace and prosperity. Once that happened we could pressure Israel to withdraw from the West Bank as there’s no way they could claim that occupying it was for security anymore. There was a clear path opened towards a free Palestinian state.
Then Hamas took power with a plurality of the vote and it all went to shit. It’s going to very difficult to convince Israel that ending the occupation will improve security for their people after what happened on October 7. But who knows, maybe a group of Palestinians that are tired of constant war might be able to get power and change things.
I feel like most Israelis want peace, just they also don’t want to be murdered in their sleep by a Hamas terrorist. I don’t think it’s a land thing, though obviously in a democracy different politcal parties will have different agendas. Israel has shown a willingness in the past to trade land for peace. It’s more of a problem of Israelis not trusting Palestinians. And October 7 means that it will probably be at least a generation and a change in Palestinian leadership before Israelis can trust Palestinians on a land for peace kind of deal. But that change in leadership has to come from within. There also needs to be a change in leadership in Israel, but that’s kind of automatic since Israel is a democracy.
The last time Israel gave up ground, Palestinians voted for Hamas. It seems Israel conceding territory is seen as a sign of weakness by too many Palestinians. Maybe the next generation will think differently. At least I hope.
Why did the authoritarian regime wait until now to turn off the Internet?
Something we can’t know at the moment. Their state media has taken some hits, so it’s possible they lost capabilities in monitoring internet traffic.
Nah… take the Iranian government, then take the Israel government… and throw them both into the Thunderdome!
Pay-per-view that shit! (And use the proceeds to help innocent rebuild their lives)
It’s a war, not a game. One of the problems we have is people considering this conflict involving a lot of human suffering like it’s a sport and taking sides and generally acting like complete psychopaths around it. The anti-Israel crowd seem to want Palestians to suffer more so they can continue to have more propaganda to prove Israelis are evil.
I want the Israeli people being held hostage by Hamas to be released and the war there to be ended as soon as possible to stop the suffering of Palestinians caught in the middle of a war and to stop the suffering of those hostages. I want Iran to give up it’s nuclear program and stop supporting terrorism across the Middle East so that war will end so Iranians and Israelis won’t be killed or maimed by exchanges of missiles and air strikes.
It is possible to have empathy for Israelis, Palestinians, and Iranians you know. Though if you do the psychos on all sides who think of this like it’s a game will all hate you.
But fuck’ em, they’re psychopaths.