from AcidicBasicGlitch@lemm.ee to technology@lemmy.world on 21 Jun 02:20
https://lemm.ee/post/67412543
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
threaded - newest
Jesus. That’s disturbing to say the least.
Wow, that audio is super unsettling. On its own it would seem innocuous, but with the context of trying to contact somebody in a country that's on the verge of being nuked, it's downright horrifying.
I’ll be very interested to some day figure out what the explanation for this is. It’s extremely bizarre and very creepy. Also, it’s crazy that Internet access can just be whisked away so easily by the government. I guess satellite is just about the only way around that.
During the invasion of Berlin in 1945, the overwhelmed German command trying to map out the Russian advance had to resort to just calling businesses or homes of people living in areas they were uncertain about.
If most people in a district did not pick up the phone, or someone did pick up and swore in Russian, they marked it on the map as invaded.
Different worlds of course, but the point is that civilian phones have intelligence value.
It could make sense as a super creepy tactical choice by Iran to deny intelligence gathering from abroad.
The more obvious choice would be to make everyone go dark, instead of setting up nationwide voice mail to pretend everyone is alive. But maybe this way they can keep everyone’s communications open while also fooling most of these intelligence gathering methods (someone answered, in the right language, mark it as active).
Or they’re trying to figure out who’s trying to stay connected with who
I know a remote worker in Iran, went dark for a few days this week. Apparently they can’t call the UK, no internet, ended up relaying messages via a friend in Brazil via sat phone.
More nightmare fuel from the Torment Nexus
Hello fellow lvl1 tech watcher
The article criticized the closing of the Internet by Tehran, but the Internet is clear vulnerability that can be exploited in times of war.
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.
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.
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?
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 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).
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 iranwire.com/…/142321-irgc-says-it-fired-2000-kil…
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.
I’d be better off for it then. If a power hungry mod cares more about their feels than the truth, then that’s a community I don’t want to be a part of.
And yeah, Iran, like most majority Muslim countries, wants Israel out of the Holy Land for religious reasons, and politically, they don’t want strong western influence in the region. Israel likewise wants to retain control of the Holy Land and maintain western allies to help keep them secure. Both sides have legitimate reasons to hate the other, and, neither side seems interested in murdering everyone on the other side, they just want their religious and political objectives met, which consists solely of control over the Holy Land.
And yeah, of course Israel wants peace, their objectives are met by holding that territory. 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.
I hope so too, on both sides. Israel needs to accept that Palestinians deserve self-rule, and Palestinians need to accept that Israel has that same right. The boundaries will need some changes, but hopefully there’s a resolution that’s acceptable to most people on both sides.
Iran’s intention is to eradicate a Jewish state in the Levant. Hamas have stated that they would repeat Oct 7 over and over (seems a stupid thing to say out loud even if one is on their side) and in fact their insane leadership called for world Islamist domination.
“We Will Repeat The October 7 Attack, Time And Again, Until Israel Is Annihilated; We Are Victims – Everything We Do Is Justified”
Whether we agree with the establishment of Israel in the first place or not, it aint going anywhere so to continue trying to eradicate it 77 years later exacerbates suffering.
Aboriginal Australians got a raw deal but are still doing better than Gazans because they didn’t continue warring. They are still fighting politically and rightly so.
I agree with everything you said, my point is merely that Iran and Israel aren’t interested in genocide, though what Israel is doing in Gaza certainly comes close.
I agree with everything you said, my point is merely that Iran and Israel aren’t interested in genocide, though what Israel is doing in Gaza certainly comes close.
Not so sure about Iran. I have looked for unambiguous quotes from them but can only find kooky religious stuff about Mahdism which is kind of like extremist Christians with their second coming madness.
Well educated Iranians seem to be Atheist whereas even intellectuals in Israel can be right wing religious nuts.
Certainly Iranian proxy groups like Hamas have unambiguously calked for a global caliphate
“Hamas, which is widely recognized as an Iranian proxy, has leaders and official rhetoric that go beyond the goal of liberating Palestine and at times explicitly reference the ambition of establishing a global Islamic caliphate.“
“On December 1, 2023, senior Hamas official Fathi Hammad declared on Al-Aqsa TV that the Palestinians are preparing to establish an Islamic caliphate with Jerusalem as its capital. He and other Hamas leaders have repeatedly stated that the liberation of Palestine is just a prelude to bringing all Islamic countries—and eventually the entire world—under Islamic rule, referencing the conquest of Rome and America as future goals”
memri.org/…/hamas-leaders-our-goal-establishment-…
For the record, my housemate of two years in Australia is Iranian. I also make music with an Iranian in Mashhad via the Internet (we jam electronic music). He is an extreme loner but tells me what society is like there.
I 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.
I don’t think hate is ever legitimate.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
“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.
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.” iranwire.com/…/142321-irgc-says-it-fired-2000-kil…
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?
Because of the genocidal rhetoric war aims behavior and aesthetics. So just vibes I guess.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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
Motherfucker: who started the war
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.
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.
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!
timesofisrael.com/for-years-netanyahu-propped-up-…
theintercept.com/…/hamas-israel-palestine-conflic…
en.m.wikipedia.org/…/Israeli_support_for_Hamas
So you consider Israel doing any negotiation with Hamas to be support for Hamas?
So Israel should continue this war until every last member of Hamas is dead, otherwise they’d be “supporting Hamas”?
You don’t like that Israel made deals to send humanitarian aid into Gaza? So you want all humanitarian aid to be cut off from Gaza because that could be considered support for Hamas?
Hamas got into power because a plurality of Palestinians voted for them. Like all fascists, they didn’t hold elections after they got power, so we really don’t know how much support they have from the Palestian people living in Gaza. But there have been times when Israel (hostage deals) has to deal with them since they are the government. Some people characterize making any deal with Hamas to be “supporting Hamas” because they don’t want Israel making any deal with Hamas.
So you’ve provided me with some opinions from other people. But do you think Israel making a hostage deals with Hamas should be considered as Israel supporting Hamas?
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’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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
Yes to both.
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).
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.
Go to hell, zionazi
Edgy!
How much do you get paid for this? It seems like an opportunity.
But fundamentally you consider massacring villages a bad thing… when some people do it.
It’s always a bad thing. It’s a bad thing that civilians die just because they happen to live in a building that a terrorist is firing at soldiers from. It’s also bad when soldiers die. In fact, it’s bad when anyone dies.
War is just an all around bad thing it seems. Holding hostages is also a bad thing. Maybe Hamas should release the hostages so the war can end?
Have you ever seen any Israeli state media? You genuinely, delusionally think that “rEleaSIng tHe hOSTagEs” would stop the full throated ethnic cleansing currently occurring? I guess you think that the West Bank is also holding hostages while they bulldoze it?
If whatever remaining hostages that the IDF hasn’t killed themselves as collateral damage were released then Israel would stop gunning down starving refugees in food aid lines. Of course they would.
They’re being paid, dear.
This is a pretty good argument for turning the protocols larper occupied territory to glass. You’re being overpaid, babe.
Wait what? Since when? No. What?
How could massacring villages be bad? We need to exterminate the brutes, so massacring villages is definitionally good!
To be fair I think massacring villages is a legitimate act when the protocols LARPers do it. I know that’s how they level up. And grinding for levels is good! It’s like self improvement!
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.
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.
This is the part where genocidal freaks, like yourself, claim that Israel, and the US, don’t target civilians. Got it. That is of course a laughably inaccurate characterization of US and Israeli policy.
I also love it when the people with all the power proclaim the wonders and efficacy of peaceful resistance. How convenient for the entrenched power. I’m tempted to call out the origin of the United States, which was violent resistance to an oppressive regime. Funny how we find that story inspiring, but deride anybody else’s struggle to escape our own oppression.
It’s not a person. It can’t be reasoned with.
When you look at Gaza does that indicate that violent resistance is super successful?
You’ve been reading too much stochastic terrorism stuff.
You mean that time some slave masters wrote some pretty words about freedom and equality and absolutely nothing changed for the slaves they owned?
I have some ancestors that had to flee political persecution during the American Revolution. When they said they tarred and feathered the “traitors” do you buy that bullshit? The slave masters that founded the United States eliminated political dissent using public torture. Oppressors always label any dissenters to be traitors. Donald Trump does this too.
You were indoctrinated into believing a fairy tale about the foundation of your country so you’d worship “founding father” the same way they worship “big brother” in 1984. The American Revolution changed who had power, it didn’t change anything about the lives of regular people, and certainly didn’t improve anything for the slaves.
I’m from Canada and the founding principle of my country was “we have to work together or the Americans will invade us.” We have more rights than Americans Do you want to guess how many revolutions and civil wars we had to get to where we are?
Most people couldn’t vote in America for much of it’s history. Tell me which revolution resulted in women having the right to vote in America? What revolution ended segregation?
Stochastic terrorists have told you a narrative that violence always works and non-violence always fails. History isn’t on your side unless you read it from the point of view of wealthy land owning slave masters. If your goal is to increase rights and freedoms, non-violence is more effective. If your goal is to get power so you can oppress people then sure, I guess violence works for that.
You are aware Hamas tortures people to death if they speak out against them, right? I guess you just want to always side with the oppressive assholes of history that use violence to gain power.
Oh, I forgot about the time that nonviolent protest ended slavery in the US. Sorry ‘bout that.
In the British Empire, slavery was ended by the abolitionist movement, which involved a lot of labour unions. The British Empire ended slavery a generation earlier than the US did, this was accomplished through non-violent resistance. The British Empire went from the biggest slaving empire in history to being the biggest anti-slaving empire in history. The ending of Amistad where the Royal Navy is detroying the slaver base? That happened… except it was many different bases they destroyed. The Royal Navy put an end to the international slave trade.
It’s weird how history is isn’t it? The British Empire was both evil and good at the same time. Seems things are more complicated than nation good or nation bad.
I forgot to mention before, that one “oppression” that your founding fathers chaffed at was the fact that Britain had treaties they made with indigenous people that fought on their side in the French and Indian war. This meant the 13 colonies were prohibited from expanding westward. Your great Founding Fathers fought for the “freedom” to genocide Indigenous people so they could expand their slave plantations westwards. Great guys!
Anyway after slaver was abolished in the British Empire, an abolitionist movement started growing in the US. One Abraham Lincoln was in that movement and he got elected President. His goal as President wasn’t to end slavery immediately though, but to move the country in a direction where it would eventually end… a generational kind of transition.
Southern states didn’t agree with this government policy so the violently rebelled with the cause of slavery forever. As the war went through the democratic process of what was left of the US, they made the Emancipation Proclamation. When the South was defeated they were forced to end slavery. Abraham Lincoln was shot by a violent protester.
Of course it didn’t really end there. Jim Crow laws segregation and all. But those were put to an end by the Civil Rights movement, a non-violent resistance movement.
So no, slavery was not ended by a violent resistance movement. There was a significant violent resistance against the ending of slavery though.
Are you sure you’re not pro-slavery? You seem to always be picking examples of violent resistance movements that were pro-slavery.
Sorry but history just isn’t on your side on this. Violent movements tend to have violent people leading them. When they “succeed” you have a country being run by violent people. This isn’t likely to lead to good results for the people living in those countries. It certainly hasn’t had a good result for the people of Gaza having violent people leading them, has it?
So you agree the place the protocols LARPers live should be returned to the Hamas people?
The way you apply labels to people to dehumanize them makes it difficult for me to understand what you’re even asking. Like do you call all Palestinians “Hamas people”?
Only when im talking to a protocols larper. That’s what you guys always seem to call them.
Ah so you dehumanize both Jews and Palestinians. So you’re a white supremacist type of antisemite.
And which kind of antisemite are you?
I’m not? Weird question, guess you just ran out of shit to say. Anyway, I think we’re done here. Try to work on not dehumanizing people when you get upset over things. I hope you can become a better person.
Yes you are.
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.
Slow clap
This is a masterpiece. Thank you sir.
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:
…cnn.com/…/iranian-missile-strike-on-tel-aviv-nic…
There’s plenty more but can’t not show this cunt and the anti-semitic pole the entire world is laughing at:
packaged-media.redd.it/…/m2-res_586p.mp4?m=DASHPl…
🤣 😂 🤣
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.
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
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.
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?
Maybe you should try living up to hus example?
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.
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 leve
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! gist.github.com/…/d35beffc4f26299e24c34fb8889fbb8…
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.
I mean, they are someone’s proxy.
Iran, look what they were wearing!
Then they stole all those expensive bombs with their devious residential buildings and science facilities!
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
From Venezuela living abroad, had the same output on a different situation.
Family was traveling to EU from Caracas, called directly without texting first via cell phone to get an idea of how ready they where to depart and all the anticipation for the trip and boom, seems like someone I don’t know is handling the phone.
Thoughts racing on my head: we’re they kidnapped, were they kidnapped? What is actually happening?
I tried to reach out using other providers and even going trough a landline, same output. A voice saying they’ll get to the phone soon and calling them to come and pick up the device. Super unsettling.
Then my wife’s phone rang via WhatsApp and it was them, they were there saying are ready for the trip and that all was on track unbeknownst to all the events.
So, without going into a lot of detail I think is by design from the current administration of narco dictatorship in Venezuela. A friend’s and family VoiP company loyal to their leaders routing by default on their own carrier once the calls go onshore within their network.
A way to make money out of this is routing calls trough a maze of providers of their own to catch a “a quarter a minute” and spread unsettling thoughts on the general population who has family abroad.
After this we all started a group on Signal and hoped for a better way to communicate privately.
Consider getting VoIP phone numbers from a jurisdiction that’s much less hostile, so you have another number available to use
This is chilling
This almost seems like a Black Mirror episode
Not sure how long they’ll work, but here’s the direct link to the audio from the article.
…flourish.studio/…/4a7cec60-ca22-4eb3-9590-80874d…
…flourish.studio/…/f54efe40-97a4-428f-8019-04edd7…
The second on is creepy as all hell
As someone born in Iran, trying to reach family yielded the same results. An AI voice picks up the phone and talks about hope, but not in a religious or war timed thing, more budhist zen definition of hope. It’s surreal. Other than that, a discord server with almost 7k members had 20 people online (who are probably not in Iran). Communications have been almost completely been broken off.
talks about hope in English or Farsi?
In English.