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On April 15 2026 08:12 dyhb wrote:
The post-October 7th world has changed the recruitment scenario slightly. Prior to that, you were part of an Iranian-funded and trained state-within-a-state with over 100,000 rockets ready to fire on Israel the zionist entity, with ample reason to believe you could obliterate the zionist entity (as Hezbollah's charter declares). Now, it's a teeny tiny bit different. Your longtime leader is dead, his deputies got pagered, the rocket attacks are now sporatic with depleted inventory, and your former base of operation is occupied by a hostile army.
So I reject the look to past recruitment to present recruitment. I'll repeat the full answer for your benefit. The Lebanese people outnumber Hezbollah, but have been under the thumb of Hezbollah, and are under no mystical belief that the Israel-Gaza situation upsets that status. They have seen the Hezbollah missiles and rockets flying to Israel, and have seen the missiles and rockets flying back. Bringing up Gaza-Israel as a primary motivation for the Lebanese to join terrorist regimes, given their experience with the current terror regime, is nonsense and I think you know it.
I'm sorry to say but there's no content in this, it's just a bunch of words. The world in the future will be different seemingly only because you say so. People didn't decide to join Hezbollah based on the amount of missiles that they could get to launch on Israel, that's not the way humans make decision.
I realize that this is mostly academic because it's not like Israel will just stop attacking Lebanon in the scenario where "Hezbollah is gone", as obviously they don't really care about Hezbollah they just want to grab more land, so there's not going to be a future where we can demonstrate any of that. But really we shouldn't need a demonstration, your claim is dubious just on its own.
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On April 15 2026 15:01 Nebuchad wrote:Show nested quote +On April 15 2026 08:12 dyhb wrote:
The post-October 7th world has changed the recruitment scenario slightly. Prior to that, you were part of an Iranian-funded and trained state-within-a-state with over 100,000 rockets ready to fire on Israel the zionist entity, with ample reason to believe you could obliterate the zionist entity (as Hezbollah's charter declares). Now, it's a teeny tiny bit different. Your longtime leader is dead, his deputies got pagered, the rocket attacks are now sporatic with depleted inventory, and your former base of operation is occupied by a hostile army.
So I reject the look to past recruitment to present recruitment. I'll repeat the full answer for your benefit. The Lebanese people outnumber Hezbollah, but have been under the thumb of Hezbollah, and are under no mystical belief that the Israel-Gaza situation upsets that status. They have seen the Hezbollah missiles and rockets flying to Israel, and have seen the missiles and rockets flying back. Bringing up Gaza-Israel as a primary motivation for the Lebanese to join terrorist regimes, given their experience with the current terror regime, is nonsense and I think you know it. I'm sorry to say but there's no content in this, it's just a bunch of words. The world in the future will be different seemingly only because you say so. People didn't decide to join Hezbollah based on the amount of missiles that they could get to launch on Israel, that's not the way humans make decision. I realize that this is mostly academic because it's not like Israel will just stop attacking Lebanon in the scenario where "Hezbollah is gone", as obviously they don't really care about Hezbollah they just want to grab more land, so there's not going to be a future where we can demonstrate any of that. But really we shouldn't need a demonstration, your claim is dubious just on its own.
Since the Six-Day War Israel has mostly shrunk rather than expanded. Gave up Sinai, Gaza, and parts of the West Bank to make a patchwork administrated map there. Not clear that they just want to grab land now.
Also, when the Allies defeated the Axis it didn't cause the victims who lost their friends and relatives in the European Theater to start feeling hatred towards the Allies that then caused them to form another terrible group that was worse than the Nazis for the innocents around them. Sometimes you can just defeat evil and it stops and you make the world a better place.
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On April 15 2026 19:53 oBlade wrote:
Also, when the Allies defeated the Axis it didn't cause the victims who lost their friends and relatives in the European Theater to start feeling hatred towards the Allies that then caused them to form another terrible group that was worse than the Nazis for the innocents around them. Sometimes you can just defeat evil and it stops and you make the world a better place.
Evil isn't the important part for this conversation, the important part is that it's reactionary. It happens as a reaction, specifically to a behavior by Israel. If the behavior continues, then it stands to reason that the reaction will continue. The nazis are the root of the violence associated with nazism, which is why it also stands to reason that getting rid of them stops that violence; but even then, if the US had decided to occupy parts of Germany for decades and casually kill hundreds of Germans a year while the world looks away, you probably would have different beliefs about the outcome.
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On April 15 2026 15:01 Nebuchad wrote:Show nested quote +On April 15 2026 08:12 dyhb wrote:
The post-October 7th world has changed the recruitment scenario slightly. Prior to that, you were part of an Iranian-funded and trained state-within-a-state with over 100,000 rockets ready to fire on Israel the zionist entity, with ample reason to believe you could obliterate the zionist entity (as Hezbollah's charter declares). Now, it's a teeny tiny bit different. Your longtime leader is dead, his deputies got pagered, the rocket attacks are now sporatic with depleted inventory, and your former base of operation is occupied by a hostile army.
So I reject the look to past recruitment to present recruitment. I'll repeat the full answer for your benefit. The Lebanese people outnumber Hezbollah, but have been under the thumb of Hezbollah, and are under no mystical belief that the Israel-Gaza situation upsets that status. They have seen the Hezbollah missiles and rockets flying to Israel, and have seen the missiles and rockets flying back. Bringing up Gaza-Israel as a primary motivation for the Lebanese to join terrorist regimes, given their experience with the current terror regime, is nonsense and I think you know it. I'm sorry to say but there's no content in this, it's just a bunch of words. The world in the future will be different seemingly only because you say so. People didn't decide to join Hezbollah based on the amount of missiles that they could get to launch on Israel, that's not the way humans make decision. I realize that this is mostly academic because it's not like Israel will just stop attacking Lebanon in the scenario where "Hezbollah is gone", as obviously they don't really care about Hezbollah they just want to grab more land, so there's not going to be a future where we can demonstrate any of that. But really we shouldn't need a demonstration, your claim is dubious just on its own. Well, your question was an odd one and had some false premises. I don't think the non-terrorist Lebanese people are too dumb to see the rockets fired towards Israel, and fail to presume that the terrorist group(s) living among them will receive counterstrikes that could also claim their loved ones. You also failed to take up how the post-October 7th world is a different recruiting world than pre-October 7th, so I suggest you re-read and address that section. Let's not forget that a powerful state-within-a-state terrorist group has it's own recruiting boon when it looks more capable of accomplishing its charter goal of the obliteration of the Zionist entity.
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On April 16 2026 00:29 dyhb wrote:
Well, your question was an odd one and had some false premises. I don't think the non-terrorist Lebanese people are too dumb to see the rockets fired towards Israel, and fail to presume that the terrorist group(s) living among them will receive counterstrikes that could also claim their loved ones. You also failed to take up how the post-October 7th world is a different recruiting world than pre-October 7th, so I suggest you re-read and address that section. Let's not forget that a powerful state-within-a-state terrorist group has it's own recruiting boon when it looks more capable of accomplishing its charter goal of the obliteration of the Zionist entity.
Just reiterating stuff that you said, so my answer is the same as well. You have offered no persuasive rationale as to why Lebanese people, as a society, would hold different feelings toward Israel in the future as they do now. Since the thing that triggers a small minority of their population to join groups like Hezbollah continues to occur, it stands to reason that their reaction to that thing in the future will be in line with what their reaction is today. In the development that you give here Lebanese people don't really behave like humans, but I suspect the main reason why it's happening is because you need this to be the case in order for your argument to work, rather than because it speaks to your worldview.
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On April 15 2026 20:29 Nebuchad wrote:Show nested quote +On April 15 2026 19:53 oBlade wrote:
Also, when the Allies defeated the Axis it didn't cause the victims who lost their friends and relatives in the European Theater to start feeling hatred towards the Allies that then caused them to form another terrible group that was worse than the Nazis for the innocents around them. Sometimes you can just defeat evil and it stops and you make the world a better place. Evil isn't the important part for this conversation, the important part is that it's reactionary. It happens as a reaction, specifically to a behavior by Israel. If the behavior continues, then it stands to reason that the reaction will continue. The nazis are the root of the violence associated with nazism, which is why it also stands to reason that getting rid of them stops that violence; but even then, if the US had decided to occupy parts of Germany for decades and casually kill hundreds of Germans a year while the world looks away, you probably would have different beliefs about the outcome.
The USSR did something similar to Germany and it's not a particularly easy question to wrestle.
Nazism was at least partly motivated by reactionism.
I get what you're saying about the idea Hezbollah contains INSIDE itself already the mechanism to self-replicate when attacked, whereas that isn't a component of Nazism. So Hezbollah is the hydra that regrows heads that you cut off, whereas Nazism just doesn't have that built into it.
I guess my point is that part isn't necessary in the original germ. Because already one day there was no Hezbollah, and yet it appeared, as a reaction, for the sake of argument at least. Something did trigger the first spawning. But the violence to stop the Third Reich didn't give birth to a Hezbollah. Is the violence itself different? Do people accept defeat because they acknowledge the violence was righteous, despite the same deaths of millions of their family/friends, many of whom weren't even Nazis. How do you know BEFORE hand that you wouldn't spawn a Hezbollah by fighting the Third Reich... or is it just a dice roll?
Or then I don't see how the rockets Hezbollah fires aren't creating the next generations of Netanyahus.
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On April 16 2026 20:30 oBlade wrote:Show nested quote +On April 15 2026 20:29 Nebuchad wrote:On April 15 2026 19:53 oBlade wrote:
Also, when the Allies defeated the Axis it didn't cause the victims who lost their friends and relatives in the European Theater to start feeling hatred towards the Allies that then caused them to form another terrible group that was worse than the Nazis for the innocents around them. Sometimes you can just defeat evil and it stops and you make the world a better place. Evil isn't the important part for this conversation, the important part is that it's reactionary. It happens as a reaction, specifically to a behavior by Israel. If the behavior continues, then it stands to reason that the reaction will continue. The nazis are the root of the violence associated with nazism, which is why it also stands to reason that getting rid of them stops that violence; but even then, if the US had decided to occupy parts of Germany for decades and casually kill hundreds of Germans a year while the world looks away, you probably would have different beliefs about the outcome. The USSR did something similar to Germany and it's not a particularly easy question to wrestle. Nazism was at least partly motivated by reactionism. I get what you're saying about the idea Hezbollah contains INSIDE itself already the mechanism to self-replicate when attacked, whereas that isn't a component of Nazism. So Hezbollah is the hydra that regrows heads that you cut off, whereas Nazism just doesn't have that built into it. I guess my point is that part isn't necessary in the original germ. Because already one day there was no Hezbollah, and yet it appeared, as a reaction, for the sake of argument at least. Something did trigger the first spawning. But the violence to stop the Third Reich didn't give birth to a Hezbollah. Is the violence itself different? Do people accept defeat because they acknowledge the violence was righteous, despite the same deaths of millions of their family/friends, many of whom weren't even Nazis. How do you know BEFORE hand that you wouldn't spawn a Hezbollah by fighting the Third Reich... or is it just a dice roll? Or then I don't see how the rockets Hezbollah fires aren't creating the next generations of Netanyahus.
In terms of the nazis being a reactionary movement, sure that's true but I assume we're talking about a violence that is more specific than that when we say that it stopped after we stopped the nazis... because as you know there are still people shooting up synagogues today, so clearly stopping the nazis did not stop violence associated with xenophobia or antisemitism. And that makes sense.
The main thing that you're not considering in your comparison with Germany, I think, is that after WW2 the violence actually did stop. We killed all those Germans during the war, sure, and we created resentment there, but then after the war the new status quo didn't include us killing a bunch of Germans every year and wronging them as the natural state of things. People got the option to move on with their lives, and eventually that's what they ended up doing.
And yeah the rockets Hezbollah fires are also helping to create the next generation of reactionary Israelis, obviously. The process is very similar.
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United States44056 Posts
Nazism is a might makes right ideology. They believed they were in a Darwinian conflict to see which had the right to endure and which didn’t deserve to exist. Essentially killing Nazis is fair game under Nazism, they lost fair and square.
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Whenever people start drawing these parallels (I guess because Goodwin's law is too powerful) and try to depict either side as "Nazis", which happens every day, on both sides, I like to point out this letter penned by Albert Einstein and a bunch of other Jewish academics to the New York Times in 1948.
The public avowals of Begin’s party are no guide whatever to its actual character. Today they speak of freedom, democracy and anti-imperialism, whereas until recently they openly preached the doctrine of the Fascist state. It is in its actions that the terrorist party betrays its real character; from its past actions we can judge what it may be expected to do in the future.
Mr Begin later went on to become an Israeli Prime Minister, the same one who led Israel to another invasion of Israel, who started the West Bank settlement program and who is one of the 2 founders of Likud, who are currently hard at work at finishing his fascist project.
I know that oBlade and dyhb don't mind fascism, but it should be said that Israel becoming what it is today was seen as coming by some of the smartest people in the world in 1948, who also happen to be Jews.
Nothing really changed since then, terrorists are still part of Likud's coalition, the West bank settlements are being aggressively expanded and and Israel is enacting the laws such as the recent "death sentence by military courts for Palestinians".
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On April 15 2026 10:18 WombaT wrote:Show nested quote +On April 15 2026 06:48 Billyboy wrote:On April 15 2026 06:39 WombaT wrote:On April 15 2026 05:53 Billyboy wrote:On April 15 2026 05:43 WombaT wrote:On April 15 2026 04:12 dyhb wrote:On April 15 2026 02:51 Nebuchad wrote:On April 15 2026 02:16 dyhb wrote:On April 14 2026 23:22 Billyboy wrote:
None of what you say is remotely true.
If you don’t understand that Hezbollah being disarmed is a huge win for Lebanon and the Lebanese people you don’t understand remotely the conflict or reason. You are just down the rabbit hole of hate and are the ignorant hateful person you claim to hate. Even an evil tyrant might accidentally improve the conditions and lives around him by prosecuting wars against their authoritarian oppressors for purely selfish reasons. Netanyahu is less than that for wanting a non-terrorist regime to the north of his country with ample weapons and will to kill Israeli civilians in its north. He isn't doing it out of the goodness of his heart for the Lebanese people, nor is it anything but stupid to discount the results based on the intentions. I think the anti-Israel blame, in some areas well-founded, has erased in the minds of the arguers just how terrible groups like Hezbollah and Hamas and the IRGC and the ayatollahs are for the innocents surrounding them. Israel gets more press simply because the western world has more influence on their actions. Any deal between Israel and Lebanon that creates peace and rids the Lebanese of Hezbollah control of their politics and southern territory is an unqualified victory for the Lebanese people. Anybody with a brain should be desiring that without whitewashing Israel's interests. What's your strategy to make sure that all of the Lebanese people who lose relatives and friends in this campaign to get rid of Hezbollah don't start feeling hatred toward Israel, hatred that will then be fueled by continued mistreatment of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza and will motivate them to form another terrible group that is bad for the innocents surrounding them and that you will have to kill a bunch of Lebanese people to get rid of in 30 years? I think they'll do a much better job than you at judging Hezbollah's oppression and intentions regarding the Lebanese people. As much as you would dismiss and ignore Hezbollah's actions after the US-Israel war on Iran, they saw the rocket and missile fire from Hezbollah into Israel first-hand. I just have to reject your premise here that it requires a strategy and their local observations are outweighed by propaganda coming from 100 miles away. On April 15 2026 03:02 Billyboy wrote:On April 15 2026 02:16 dyhb wrote:On April 14 2026 23:22 Billyboy wrote:
None of what you say is remotely true.
If you don’t understand that Hezbollah being disarmed is a huge win for Lebanon and the Lebanese people you don’t understand remotely the conflict or reason. You are just down the rabbit hole of hate and are the ignorant hateful person you claim to hate. Even an evil tyrant might accidentally improve the conditions and lives around him by prosecuting wars against their authoritarian oppressors for purely selfish reasons. Netanyahu is less than that for wanting a non-terrorist regime to the north of his country with ample weapons and will to kill Israeli civilians in its north. He isn't doing it out of the goodness of his heart for the Lebanese people, nor is it anything but stupid to discount the results based on the intentions. I think the anti-Israel blame, in some areas well-founded, has erased in the minds of the arguers just how terrible groups like Hezbollah and Hamas and the IRGC and the ayatollahs are for the innocents surrounding them. Israel gets more press simply because the western world has more influence on their actions. Any deal between Israel and Lebanon that creates peace and rids the Lebanese of Hezbollah control of their politics and southern territory is an unqualified victory for the Lebanese people. Anybody with a brain should be desiring that without whitewashing Israel's interests. I agree with most of what you said and I don’t think you would be able to find a post from me that suggests Netanyahu’s interests are anything other than self. What frustrates me is there are people in this thread that post as if groups like Hezbollah or Hamas are freedom fighters, which simply is not accurate. There are plenty of things to criticize Israel about that are real and proven. Iran being only in Iran should be a goal that everyone shares. If you don’t share it, you are either uninformed, filled with hatred or both. I think they really truly believe that Iranian proxies are legitimately concerned with the well-being of non-combatants. It's some kind of remix of the old pan-Arab nationalism movement or something. I don’t think thread denizens view Hezbollah, Hamas as honourable freedom fighters at all. The quibble is mostly if Israel should kill mostly civilians to eradicate those organisations in lieu of other potential avenues. Israel at this stage is just as hardline as an Iran, increasingly virulently nationalistic emboldened by the US and just bombs folks as they want. Polling, increasingly reflects this as well. The idea that a Netanyahu was doing certain things to deflect from unpopularity, and it didn’t reflect general Israeli sentiment and there was sizeable opposition used to have some legs, increasingly it appears it doesn’t. They are not nearly as hard line. For example, in Israel no protesters have been killed. In Iran 10s of thousands have. How many civilians have been killed in Palestine? Hard to say since Israel claims most were Hamas and Hamas claims all were civilians. Around 70k total. But there is a real chance less civilians died in Gaza during their war then Iran killed in a couple weeks of protesters. And well the number is way to high, it is an absolute bollocks assertion that Israel was trying to kill as many as they could. If that was the case the number would be 7 figures. Right so we’ve got a ballpark 70k number to begin with and an Israel that has been progressively more hostile to international observers operating to even verify such things. This incidentally doesn’t include civilian casualties in say the Lebanon, or Iran We’ve got illegal settlements ever expanding too. The assertion has never been that Israel is trying to kill as many as it could possibly can, just that it doesn’t really give a shit about killing civiiians. By the same logic I mean Russia isn’t behaving abominably, because if they really wanted to kill as many as they could they could just nuke Ukraine. At what point do people abandon this fanciful idea that Israel is some outlier of democratic values in the region, when they’re bombing the fucking beejaysus out of everyone? They’re no better than Iran really, same shit different flavour. An appalling state that could do considerably better but chooses not to.
The assertion - at least by some in this thread - definitely has been that Israel is trying to kill as many as it can get away with. And these, among others, are the kind of claims I argued against. I still don't see myself as a staunch defender of Israel - rather a more nuanced view on this conflict-, but arguing against such idiotic statements was the thing that branded me one. MagicPowers clearly made that claim many times and others assisted his line of argumentation, tried to attack the evidence I posted or didn't bother speaking out against these claims.
But even the assertion that Israel doesn't give a shit about killing civilians can be tested...
We have the numbers from the IDF, but also the ones from independent sources. These put the civilian casualty rate in Gaza at around 50 to 75 %. Compare that to Mosul (60 - 80%) or the Syrian Civil War, which is believed to be majority civilian casualties. This clearly puts Gaza in the range of other urban / asymmetric wars or slightly below it.
But even if it was worse slightly... Gaza is more populated in general, more populated with women and children and Hamas is among the most, if not the faction which is most embedded in civilian infrastructure, even firing rockets from refugee camps.
In Lebanon the estimate is 40 - 70% civilian casualties and the numbers depend on whether urban strikes are included or the intensity of the phase are already lower.
And as you mentioned Iran, we have a perfectly fine comparison, how Israel's civilian tolls are, when there is no urban warfare, as the reported deaths - depending on the source - sit at 10 - 30 %. So there is a clear degression and one that can be explained by the nature of the battle. So I would really like to know, how you arrive at the idea, that Israel doesn't give a shit about civilians, as I think these numbers and the context clearly hint at a different conclusion.
And not only looking at casualty figures, but overall conduct: Israel has provided fuel, water and electricity to a hostile region and also has similar rates of civilian casualties to comparable conflicts. Gazan civilians were warned via speakers, SMS, TV, radio ahead of time and patients from Gaza have been treated in Israeli hospitals. At different times in history, tens of thousands of Palestinians have worked in Israel, taking home much higher income.
Israel has different kind of ethnicities in every branch of society, allowing for freedom of religion and has given up their most holy site to the Muslims, which don't want to share the Temple Mount / Al Aqsa.
And despite all its flaws, it still is a democratic state with rules and regulations, whereas Iran killed of tens of thousands protestors.
These observations obviously don't negate valid criticism of military actions but it shows that there are long-standing systems of cooperation, dependence and even support to Palestinian civilians.
So to say that Israel is no better than Iran - in my opinion - is preposterous.
Although I respect your opinion most of the time, even if it differs from mine, this statement is absolute madness. Israel operates in ongoing asymmetric conflicts, dense urban warfare environments, while Iran has mostly been attacking Israel through proxies or launching rockets at everything -often not even military sites -, which is supported by missiles hitting residential building, a synagogue or apartment blocks. In some phases almost all fatalities on the Israeli side were civilians and the recent war sits at 65 - 75% civilian casualties in non urban warfare but missile strikes. Compare that to the 10 - 30% on the other side.
Further, Iran is primarily criticized for systematic internal repression, while Israel is criticized for conduct in war. Collapsing those into a single moral judgement ignores that they operate in fundamentally different domains.
Your statement completely erases what these states are actually being criticized for and it treats outcome as intentional.
Perhaps there is something I overlooked, so please share your thoughts on this one...
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Israel is not only criticized about it's conduct during war. They are and have been criticized for decades for aggressive settlement expansion, the two tier justice system in West Bank and Israel in general, terrible conditions they are keeping Palestinian prisoners in, sniping of kids and journalists outside of war etc.
They have also been cracking down on protests (semi justified as they are in a state of war and missiles were flying at them at the time), they have been criticized for shutting down investigation in their soldiers raping (with a knife) a Palestinian prisoner, for enacting a death penalty only for Palestinians and so, so much more.
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On April 18 2026 00:57 Jankisa wrote:
Israel is not only criticized about it's conduct during war. They are and have been criticized for decades for aggressive settlement expansion, the two tier justice system in West Bank and Israel in general, terrible conditions they are keeping Palestinian prisoners in, sniping of kids and journalists outside of war etc.
They have also been cracking down on protests (semi justified as they are in a state of war and missiles were flying at them at the time), they have been criticized for shutting down investigation in their soldiers raping (with a knife) a Palestinian prisoner, for enacting a death penalty only for Palestinians and so, so much more.
When an Israeli cop deliberately shoots a child in the back of the head as they are running away and instead of being charged they are hailed as a hero by top politicians, there doesn't need to be any further explanation.
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On April 18 2026 00:57 Jankisa wrote:
Israel is not only criticized about it's conduct during war. They are and have been criticized for decades for aggressive settlement expansion, the two tier justice system in West Bank and Israel in general, terrible conditions they are keeping Palestinian prisoners in, sniping of kids and journalists outside of war etc.
They have also been cracking down on protests (semi justified as they are in a state of war and missiles were flying at them at the time), they have been criticized for shutting down investigation in their soldiers raping (with a knife) a Palestinian prisoner, for enacting a death penalty only for Palestinians and so, so much more.
The point wasn’t to deny that Israel has been criticized for a wide range of issues. And while some of the claims you mentioned are well-supported, others are disputed or overstated, that’s not what I was addressing.
My focus is on the comparison itself. Saying “they’re no better than Iran” implies a level of equivalence that I don’t think is accurate or justified. You can strongly criticize Israel’s policies without concluding that it is essentially the same kind of state as Iran.
To be precise, I reject the following premises:
1. That no one in this thread has argued that Israel deliberately tries to kill as many Palestinians as possible.
2. That the available data and described events justify the conclusion that Israel does not care at all about civilians.
3. That Israel and Iran can be meaningfully described as “no different” in the way suggested.
This doesn’t mean rejecting all criticism or dismissing the possibility of serious wrongdoing. It just means that criticism should remain proportionate and not collapse into oversimplified equivalence.
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Not only is Israel trying to kill as many Palestinians as possible, they have miscalculated and they have killed more Palestinians than what was possible. We see that public opinion has very dramatically shifted against them, and now only absolute reprobates and people who are paid to do so still defend their actions. There can be several explanations here but my best guess is that they were trying to tread the line and they fucked up because they thought October 7th would give them more leeway than it ended up giving them.
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On April 18 2026 01:16 PremoBeats wrote:Show nested quote +On April 18 2026 00:57 Jankisa wrote:
Israel is not only criticized about it's conduct during war. They are and have been criticized for decades for aggressive settlement expansion, the two tier justice system in West Bank and Israel in general, terrible conditions they are keeping Palestinian prisoners in, sniping of kids and journalists outside of war etc.
They have also been cracking down on protests (semi justified as they are in a state of war and missiles were flying at them at the time), they have been criticized for shutting down investigation in their soldiers raping (with a knife) a Palestinian prisoner, for enacting a death penalty only for Palestinians and so, so much more. The point wasn’t to deny that Israel has been criticized for a wide range of issues. And while some of the claims you mentioned are well-supported, others are disputed or overstated, that’s not what I was addressing. My focus is on the comparison itself. Saying “they’re no better than Iran” implies a level of equivalence that I don’t think is accurate or justified. You can strongly criticize Israel’s policies without concluding that it is essentially the same kind of state as Iran. To be precise, I reject the following premises: 1. That no one in this thread has argued that Israel deliberately tries to kill as many Palestinians as possible. 2. That the available data and described events justify the conclusion that Israel does not care at all about civilians. 3. That Israel and Iran can be meaningfully described as “no different” in the way suggested. This doesn’t mean rejecting all criticism or dismissing the possibility of serious wrongdoing. It just means that criticism should remain proportionate and not collapse into oversimplified equivalence. The proportionality and avoidance of "oversimplified equivalence" is important for giving a serious topic the seriousness it deserves. If there's a sane level approaching incidents that reflect badly on the Israeli armed forces, Israeli politicians, or the Israeli justice system, the insane level of #1, #2, and #3 just kills the all the real, sane discussion that can be had. Don't be the person that starts with a conclusion (like Israel seeks to maximize civilian casualties, or Israel and Iran are no different) and hopelessly tries to cobble together enough evidence to justify their predetermined conclusion. Be the one that goes with the evidence, like the Israeli government does not do enough to restrain the extremist settlers in both policing and prosecuting, or the IDF fires too freely on perceived threats and doesn't investigate and prosecute strongly the worst cases of it, or the judiciary system is too lenient.
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The mr. "sane" here is the one who, by the way, kept justifying IDF killing a 8 and 11 year old boys who were gathering firewood along the yellow line.
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On April 18 2026 02:56 Jankisa wrote:
The mr. "sane" here is the one who, by the way, kept justifying IDF killing a 8 and 11 year old boys who were gathering firewood along the yellow line.
If only war was as simple as blindly believing one story to the exclusion of all others. Yes, that's an insane thing to do, but you keep doing it anyways.
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You may wonder why people with extreme views such as dyhb, but before him Danglars or BJ, keep talking about the sane middle and how extremism makes it impossible to reach consensus and move forward with a better future. It appears weird at first, but it's actually a very simple strategy. No matter what topic it is, it is always the opponent that is extreme and should move to the middle, and no matter what topic it is, "moving to the middle" is always characterized as accepting the framing of the far right, with smaller gestures toward moderation to make it look like this isn't what's happening.
When the leftist or liberal sticks with their morally sound, accurate to reality, positions, they can then be characterized as problematic. You see, I as a conservative was willing to make a move toward you, but the leftist refused! How unreasonable. He is the problem, not me. When the leftist or liberal falls into the trap and accepts the framing of the far right as reasonable based on the small gestures, then of course nothing changes in the real world and those small gestures that we were talking about don't materialize: the centrist has already adopted the framing of the far right, and so they're arguing from a position of weakness which the far right can then exploit by strongly advancing their arguments and positions against the weak middle of the road position.
And at this point, we can use the same tactic to reframe the debate again. Why is it that we're not getting the small gestures that we talked about earlier? We've done what you wanted, and it didn't happen. Well you see, demanding those small gestures is unreasonable, that's what the extreme leftists want. What you should do is meet me in the middle, which is now a further right position than before, and if you meet me in the middle there, then we can reach consensus and move forward with a better future...
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On April 18 2026 01:16 PremoBeats wrote:Show nested quote +On April 18 2026 00:57 Jankisa wrote:
Israel is not only criticized about it's conduct during war. They are and have been criticized for decades for aggressive settlement expansion, the two tier justice system in West Bank and Israel in general, terrible conditions they are keeping Palestinian prisoners in, sniping of kids and journalists outside of war etc.
They have also been cracking down on protests (semi justified as they are in a state of war and missiles were flying at them at the time), they have been criticized for shutting down investigation in their soldiers raping (with a knife) a Palestinian prisoner, for enacting a death penalty only for Palestinians and so, so much more. The point wasn’t to deny that Israel has been criticized for a wide range of issues. And while some of the claims you mentioned are well-supported, others are disputed or overstated, that’s not what I was addressing. My focus is on the comparison itself. Saying “they’re no better than Iran” implies a level of equivalence that I don’t think is accurate or justified. You can strongly criticize Israel’s policies without concluding that it is essentially the same kind of state as Iran. To be precise, I reject the following premises: 1. That no one in this thread has argued that Israel deliberately tries to kill as many Palestinians as possible. 2. That the available data and described events justify the conclusion that Israel does not care at all about civilians. 3. That Israel and Iran can be meaningfully described as “no different” in the way suggested. This doesn’t mean rejecting all criticism or dismissing the possibility of serious wrongdoing. It just means that criticism should remain proportionate and not collapse into oversimplified equivalence.
1. Correct, people in this thread have suggested that.
2. Israel used to care about civilians but in recent years I at least get the feeling that they now care about civilians only in how it affects their image. If no one knows it doesn't matter, if it gets out it still hardly matters. Potential suffering amongst "enemy" civilians seem to be a non factor in the new military planning. Individual cases of abuse or obvious mistakes are either swept under the rug or given a slap on the wrist. And senior Israeli politicians actively encourage that type of behaviour. Also se point 3.
3. Iran and Israel are different as apples and oranges are but they are both still fruit. I'd argue that in when it comes to stoking conflict in the middle east they are on the same level. When it comes to ignoring the plight of other countries and civilians they are also on the same level. Iran funds Hezbollah and the Houthis and helped Assad in the civil war. But Israel has Gaza and has no problem "mowing the lawn" in Lebanon. They actively tried to rekindle the civil war in Syria. They obviously prefer weak and broken states next door and show absolutely no regard to the tremendous cost this incours on those countries. And again, senior Israeli politicians said as much. If Turkey hadn't put the foot down (and Erdogan being buddies with Trump) Syria would be fucked right now.
So when it comes to being good neighbours and preventing conflict I feel both countries are about equally horrible.
In many other aspects Israel is better than Iran. But those areas are usually not related to the government and Iranian citizens are not their goverment any more than Israeli citizens are.
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Northern Ireland26983 Posts
On April 17 2026 15:00 PremoBeats wrote:Show nested quote +On April 15 2026 10:18 WombaT wrote:On April 15 2026 06:48 Billyboy wrote:On April 15 2026 06:39 WombaT wrote:On April 15 2026 05:53 Billyboy wrote:On April 15 2026 05:43 WombaT wrote:On April 15 2026 04:12 dyhb wrote:On April 15 2026 02:51 Nebuchad wrote:On April 15 2026 02:16 dyhb wrote:On April 14 2026 23:22 Billyboy wrote:
None of what you say is remotely true.
If you don’t understand that Hezbollah being disarmed is a huge win for Lebanon and the Lebanese people you don’t understand remotely the conflict or reason. You are just down the rabbit hole of hate and are the ignorant hateful person you claim to hate. Even an evil tyrant might accidentally improve the conditions and lives around him by prosecuting wars against their authoritarian oppressors for purely selfish reasons. Netanyahu is less than that for wanting a non-terrorist regime to the north of his country with ample weapons and will to kill Israeli civilians in its north. He isn't doing it out of the goodness of his heart for the Lebanese people, nor is it anything but stupid to discount the results based on the intentions. I think the anti-Israel blame, in some areas well-founded, has erased in the minds of the arguers just how terrible groups like Hezbollah and Hamas and the IRGC and the ayatollahs are for the innocents surrounding them. Israel gets more press simply because the western world has more influence on their actions. Any deal between Israel and Lebanon that creates peace and rids the Lebanese of Hezbollah control of their politics and southern territory is an unqualified victory for the Lebanese people. Anybody with a brain should be desiring that without whitewashing Israel's interests. What's your strategy to make sure that all of the Lebanese people who lose relatives and friends in this campaign to get rid of Hezbollah don't start feeling hatred toward Israel, hatred that will then be fueled by continued mistreatment of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza and will motivate them to form another terrible group that is bad for the innocents surrounding them and that you will have to kill a bunch of Lebanese people to get rid of in 30 years? I think they'll do a much better job than you at judging Hezbollah's oppression and intentions regarding the Lebanese people. As much as you would dismiss and ignore Hezbollah's actions after the US-Israel war on Iran, they saw the rocket and missile fire from Hezbollah into Israel first-hand. I just have to reject your premise here that it requires a strategy and their local observations are outweighed by propaganda coming from 100 miles away. On April 15 2026 03:02 Billyboy wrote:On April 15 2026 02:16 dyhb wrote:On April 14 2026 23:22 Billyboy wrote:
None of what you say is remotely true.
If you don’t understand that Hezbollah being disarmed is a huge win for Lebanon and the Lebanese people you don’t understand remotely the conflict or reason. You are just down the rabbit hole of hate and are the ignorant hateful person you claim to hate. Even an evil tyrant might accidentally improve the conditions and lives around him by prosecuting wars against their authoritarian oppressors for purely selfish reasons. Netanyahu is less than that for wanting a non-terrorist regime to the north of his country with ample weapons and will to kill Israeli civilians in its north. He isn't doing it out of the goodness of his heart for the Lebanese people, nor is it anything but stupid to discount the results based on the intentions. I think the anti-Israel blame, in some areas well-founded, has erased in the minds of the arguers just how terrible groups like Hezbollah and Hamas and the IRGC and the ayatollahs are for the innocents surrounding them. Israel gets more press simply because the western world has more influence on their actions. Any deal between Israel and Lebanon that creates peace and rids the Lebanese of Hezbollah control of their politics and southern territory is an unqualified victory for the Lebanese people. Anybody with a brain should be desiring that without whitewashing Israel's interests. I agree with most of what you said and I don’t think you would be able to find a post from me that suggests Netanyahu’s interests are anything other than self. What frustrates me is there are people in this thread that post as if groups like Hezbollah or Hamas are freedom fighters, which simply is not accurate. There are plenty of things to criticize Israel about that are real and proven. Iran being only in Iran should be a goal that everyone shares. If you don’t share it, you are either uninformed, filled with hatred or both. I think they really truly believe that Iranian proxies are legitimately concerned with the well-being of non-combatants. It's some kind of remix of the old pan-Arab nationalism movement or something. I don’t think thread denizens view Hezbollah, Hamas as honourable freedom fighters at all. The quibble is mostly if Israel should kill mostly civilians to eradicate those organisations in lieu of other potential avenues. Israel at this stage is just as hardline as an Iran, increasingly virulently nationalistic emboldened by the US and just bombs folks as they want. Polling, increasingly reflects this as well. The idea that a Netanyahu was doing certain things to deflect from unpopularity, and it didn’t reflect general Israeli sentiment and there was sizeable opposition used to have some legs, increasingly it appears it doesn’t. They are not nearly as hard line. For example, in Israel no protesters have been killed. In Iran 10s of thousands have. How many civilians have been killed in Palestine? Hard to say since Israel claims most were Hamas and Hamas claims all were civilians. Around 70k total. But there is a real chance less civilians died in Gaza during their war then Iran killed in a couple weeks of protesters. And well the number is way to high, it is an absolute bollocks assertion that Israel was trying to kill as many as they could. If that was the case the number would be 7 figures. Right so we’ve got a ballpark 70k number to begin with and an Israel that has been progressively more hostile to international observers operating to even verify such things. This incidentally doesn’t include civilian casualties in say the Lebanon, or Iran We’ve got illegal settlements ever expanding too. The assertion has never been that Israel is trying to kill as many as it could possibly can, just that it doesn’t really give a shit about killing civiiians. By the same logic I mean Russia isn’t behaving abominably, because if they really wanted to kill as many as they could they could just nuke Ukraine. At what point do people abandon this fanciful idea that Israel is some outlier of democratic values in the region, when they’re bombing the fucking beejaysus out of everyone? They’re no better than Iran really, same shit different flavour. An appalling state that could do considerably better but chooses not to. The assertion - at least by some in this thread - definitely has been that Israel is trying to kill as many as it can get away with. And these, among others, are the kind of claims I argued against. I still don't see myself as a staunch defender of Israel - rather a more nuanced view on this conflict-, but arguing against such idiotic statements was the thing that branded me one. MagicPowers clearly made that claim many times and others assisted his line of argumentation, tried to attack the evidence I posted or didn't bother speaking out against these claims. But even the assertion that Israel doesn't give a shit about killing civilians can be tested... We have the numbers from the IDF, but also the ones from independent sources. These put the civilian casualty rate in Gaza at around 50 to 75 %. Compare that to Mosul (60 - 80%) or the Syrian Civil War, which is believed to be majority civilian casualties. This clearly puts Gaza in the range of other urban / asymmetric wars or slightly below it. But even if it was worse slightly... Gaza is more populated in general, more populated with women and children and Hamas is among the most, if not the faction which is most embedded in civilian infrastructure, even firing rockets from refugee camps. In Lebanon the estimate is 40 - 70% civilian casualties and the numbers depend on whether urban strikes are included or the intensity of the phase are already lower. And as you mentioned Iran, we have a perfectly fine comparison, how Israel's civilian tolls are, when there is no urban warfare, as the reported deaths - depending on the source - sit at 10 - 30 %. So there is a clear degression and one that can be explained by the nature of the battle. So I would really like to know, how you arrive at the idea, that Israel doesn't give a shit about civilians, as I think these numbers and the context clearly hint at a different conclusion. And not only looking at casualty figures, but overall conduct: Israel has provided fuel, water and electricity to a hostile region and also has similar rates of civilian casualties to comparable conflicts. Gazan civilians were warned via speakers, SMS, TV, radio ahead of time and patients from Gaza have been treated in Israeli hospitals. At different times in history, tens of thousands of Palestinians have worked in Israel, taking home much higher income. Israel has different kind of ethnicities in every branch of society, allowing for freedom of religion and has given up their most holy site to the Muslims, which don't want to share the Temple Mount / Al Aqsa. And despite all its flaws, it still is a democratic state with rules and regulations, whereas Iran killed of tens of thousands protestors. These observations obviously don't negate valid criticism of military actions but it shows that there are long-standing systems of cooperation, dependence and even support to Palestinian civilians. So to say that Israel is no better than Iran - in my opinion - is preposterous. Although I respect your opinion most of the time, even if it differs from mine, this statement is absolute madness. Israel operates in ongoing asymmetric conflicts, dense urban warfare environments, while Iran has mostly been attacking Israel through proxies or launching rockets at everything -often not even military sites -, which is supported by missiles hitting residential building, a synagogue or apartment blocks. In some phases almost all fatalities on the Israeli side were civilians and the recent war sits at 65 - 75% civilian casualties in non urban warfare but missile strikes. Compare that to the 10 - 30% on the other side. Further, Iran is primarily criticized for systematic internal repression, while Israel is criticized for conduct in war. Collapsing those into a single moral judgement ignores that they operate in fundamentally different domains. Your statement completely erases what these states are actually being criticized for and it treats outcome as intentional. Perhaps there is something I overlooked, so please share your thoughts on this one...
Ok to clarify, no Israel isn’t as bad as Iran IMO. Venting frustration doesn’t aid specificity. For me their conduct has increasingly taken them past a threshold and into a similar domain, namely of consistently egregious conduct that can simply be outright condemned wholesale rather than dissected with the scalpel of nuance.
There are mitigating factors, although less so than prior, and accompanied with significant increases in the bad so to speak.
Alas bit too busy to do a more lengthy reply, will pop back in at some point.
Essentially the crux of my point is simply that ‘it’s complicated’ or other barriers tend to pop up on this particular topic, where they don’t necessarily elsewhere, or employ rationales they wouldn’t elsewhere.
I don’t think this precludes discussing complexities either, or mitigating factors or what have you.
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