This is the key. People talk some crazy stories about Iran being a theocratic state whose life mission is destroying Israel but the fact is they don't want to end up like Libya, Syria or any other country Israel considers a threat.

And a reminder - Israel has illegals WMDs, using technology and nuclear material stolen from the US. So thinking Iran will simply nuke Israel because it has that capability is silly - it would mean mutual destruction.

why would not iran gov sacrifice few million of its people to kill whole israel?

Hell, in the next 30 or so years oil will disappear from the middle east, and Iran is just about the only country that has a realistic shot at still having an economy after that.

Be neutral and objective, but America, Ukraine and Israel are currently the most agresively operating forces salivating over WW3. Yes, Russia is also quite brutal, but it's not going to profit from WW3 on the stock market!

Who are the PROFITEERS of this?

How can WE fight this war mongering?

Do we need to get active on the Battlefield? Do we need to sabotage Sattelite Networks, disarm financial incentives etc. etc. to combat those who want a WW3?

Only billionaires are going to become richer from a war. Everyone else will eat radioactive food and their DNA will be wiped out forever from the human gene pool. Seem like an Eugenic goal

All while Russia is threatning with nuclear destruction of Ukraine and Western countries.

So, how the hell is Ukraine salivating over WW3 and Russia isn't LMAO

Actions provoking WW3 are as I commented. You've not made a valid counter argument and have only chose PARTISANSHIP. Which I have not.

I suggest etiquette and neutral speech before spitting hate in internet forums.

I disagree, but in light of your previous comment, it doesn't shock me.

> Actions provoking WW3 are as I commented.

You're wrong, they're not. You have pretty clearly chosen PARTISANSHIP by stating a country being invaded and fighting for their lives and sovereignty as the ones salivating for WW3.

It's a remarkable backward-thinking exercise. Russia is clearly:

- violating International Law, the UN Charter, and many other agreements and memoranda;

- all while threatening nuclear annihilation of Ukraine, UK, USA and other European countries;

- Attacking and destroying third countries' civilian infrastructures;

Among other atrocities and crimes.

But somehow, through magical thinking, you deem them as the victims here who have nothing to gain from this.

You are not OK with stock market gains, but you're OK with Russia stealing Ukrainian natural resources, their population, including kidnapped children?

Let me ask you this: according to your logic, were Hitler and Stalin the victims, and was Poland salivating for starting WW2?

Iran is not tribal, it is a fairly ancient empire with strong continuity over 2500 years. Approximately as old as Rome, but with no collapse.

Iran will almost certainly hold together if the current batch of rulers disappears. It survived even the Mongols.

They took back their government and they “gave” it to the clerics back in C20

The Iranians by and large have the state they want. Strong parallel with Irish history where independence brought about a theocratic Junta. That only went away with deeper integration into the European economy.

Because what does get forgotten is that socialists worldwide strongly supported the revolution, from Moscow to Brazil, Berlin to New York, including supporting khomeini. With the UK's campaign "khomeini doesn't seek power, just wants to free Iran" message (spread by the BBC), and France's asylum and help. Protest marches in support of what turned out to be murderous islamists in every capital.

As for tactics: Khomeini (let's be honest here: it was Khomeini) organized snipers to shoot into the security services during a protest, provoking a battle where 89 people died ... at which point Khomeini declared that "4,000 innocent protesters were massacred by Zionists".

The protestors, whipped up by leftists did not take khomeini at his word, organized a general country-wide strike ... Khomeini organized further attacks on both his allies and the government, each time blaming zionists, never losing socialist support ... and 2 years later, now in power, Khomeini organized a massacre to "purify" Iranian society of his socialist allies, at least 3800 brutally executed, including high school students, one at most 7 years old. He has kept killing, and khamenei has continued the killings, some years 300, in the last decade more like 1000 every year.

Famously khamenei declared that "executing minors is illegal, if they're virgins". By which he meant that female prisoners are to be raped multiple times before execution. [1]

But I guess that's better than vague oil corruption and evil western influence, isn't it? Never mind that of course the revolution has totally failed Iran. They did not bring jobs, did not bring housing, did not ... in the 50 years they have in power.

Needless to say, more people died in Khomeini's purification than in every other part of the revolution combined. Hell, more people died in the last 5 years of "islamic" peace, than died in the 5 years of the revolution.

[1] https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2023/12/iran-security...

They're talking about the current regime, from which it isn't clear the population will ever successfully take back their country.

some religious lunatics would deem that worthy

That would be primarily Evangelical Zionists, seeking to hasten the end of days.

Film, Til Kingdom Come -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%27Til_Kingdom_Come_(film)

so it even no need to be lunatic to act some nukes.

is it crazy, sure. is it crazy story to say,no. it seems real.

A pretty popular opinion these days

That place would be leveled and you wouldn't hear a peep of opposition.

You wouldn't hear any opposition from inside the USA.

At the same time, the USA levelling the place would create a lot of opposition basically everywhere else.

The UK government trying to toe the line with the USA about invading Iraq in the name of the GWOT was met with 10-16% of the UK population marching in protest against UK involvement: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/15_February_2003_anti-war_prot...

This is something I bring up whenever anyone can't understand why Israel's response to Hamas' attack nearly two years ago now is likely even stronger than the USA's to 9/11 — even at best it would take a decade for the rage to dissipate, and the Israeli people are unlikely to care about the opinions of people like me for the same reason the Americans didn't.

I think you're incorrect about the opposition. You get the loud mouth left that for some reason have aligned themselves to a terrorist organisation. But if you go down the pub and speak to real people here in the UK, it's the complete opposite. It's reflected in the most recent polling where the vast majority of the country voted for what could be described as the most right-wing party seriously operating in the UK today.

People are really getting fed up of Islamic nonsense leaking into our completely incompatible society.

I dunno about that. Iraq suffered between a quarter million and a million dead (depending on how you count). The % of those who touched a gun is low, under %10. The vast majority are civilians.

There wasn't a focused effort to bring in food, water or electricity to Iraq. A key difference is that Iraqis could leave, and hundreds of thousands did (to Syria, Jordan and other countries).

Israel's war in Gaza, messy and horrible as it is, is far (very far) more focused on Hamas than America's wars were in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"Anything different would face massive opposition and carry a political death sentence for whoever gave the order."

That's your personal opinion.

You've said that like it's of no significance.

1) Israeli government willingly favored Hamas governing the Gaza strip and completely cut off the Palestinian authority

2) Israeli government ignored their own intelligence and even allowed money and weapons transfer from Qatar to Hamas

3) Israeli intelligence knew October 7 was gonna happen and did little to prevent it

4) While October 7 is one of the most despicable acts of crime and terror ever happened, it has not happened in a vacuum. It has happened by people who are literally living in the hell and open prison the Israelis have created for them

This is not considered valid in Israel.

In Israel October 7 is considered a massive failure of intelligence. No one in the top 30 of any Israeli intelligence agency that Oct 7 was going to happen.

hamas came to power in 2006 after usa forced election (against will of PA that was afraid that hamas will win). after this usa was horrified by outcome and trained/sponsored PA to take over gaza and depose hamas. PA failed and it forces were shot/thrown from roofs/dragged behind bikes and supporters tortured into obedience.

as outcome PA ceased paying salaries to it employees in gaza and foot the bill for infrastructure/etc.

there was massive outrage in media that "hundreds of thousands of people in gaza will starve now because they have no money to buy food" that forced Israel to allow money transfers from Qatar

"Well, obviously they are blinded by rage" is not exactly my favorite argument.

You imply here that those countries woes are primarily due to Israel. They are not.

Syria was embroiled and toppled by Islamic Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham backed by Turkey. Libya was due to civil war. Several of these conflicts were funded by Iran as well.

You can go down the list. Please study at least some basics on the region.

> So thinking Iran will simply nuke Israel because it has that capability is silly - it would mean mutual destruction.

One would hope, but if Allah is protecting them why would they need to fear retaliation? Theocracies can be unpredictable. Also they could provide dirty bombs to their proxies in the region.

- Libya was bombed primarily by France and then other NATO countries for no good reason. And from a functioning dictatorship it is a failed state.

- Syria was invaded by Turkey/US right after the civil war started.

In the world we all live in you need to have powerful deterrents so that the US/France/UK/NATO will not dare to bomb you for whatever reason they feel "justified" to do.

In an extreme, I think every country should have a lot of nukes so other countries can mind their own business.

The problem is that countries tend to assume that the neighbors are also their business.

Right. Because nothing says "I can mind my own business." like nuclear weapons being at most one coup from being launched at someone, possibly you.

People thought nuclear weapons are a defensive deterrent but what war in Ukraine showed us they are actually offensive weapons that deter anyone from defending to strongly when you attack them with your conventional forces.

Both russia and USA used their nuclear weapons in that manner for the last few decades. It's time to call the thing that quacks what it is, a duck.

You're saying not all countries should be able to have powerful weapons just because there might be a coup. Who decides that? You? Me? A random guy on the street? A random bureaucrat from a random country?

There are very few people who think they can win a nuclear exchange. And somehow I don't think a random guy in Africa or the Middle East is so sure about it that it risks launching nukes at its neighbor(s).

Of course. How is that controversial?

> Who decides that? You?

Of course. I decide what I believe to be right. And in practice the countries that get to have nuclear weapons are the countries that got nuclear weapons. Not because they deserve it or should have it. Just because they got it. Which makes France, USA and Israel some of the countries that get to have nukes and Iran one of the countries that don't get to have nukes.

> There are very few people who think they can win a nuclear exchange.

You mistake humans for rational actors. Have you heard what the stance of russia is for example? "What's the use for the world if there's no russia in it." Basically if they can't do what they want, they think world deserves to get nuked into oblivion.

Take the US for example: if the president, secretary of defense and probably the head of the joint chiefs decide it is OK to nuke half the planet because "reasons" - how is that different from a traditional coup?

> Which makes France, USA and Israel some of the countries that get to have nukes and Iran one of the countries that don't get to have nukes.

Power is always taken, never given. Following your rationale, Iran should do whatever to get its hands on some nukes real fast.

> Have you heard what the stance of Russia is for example?

Have you heard of peacocking? If it were actually true, they would have nuked the world way before probably me and you were born.

Democracies tend to be more resilient against rule by aggressive idiots. So being a democracy should be lowest common denominator.

> Power is always taken, never given. Following your rationale, Iran should do whatever to get its hands on some nukes real fast.

I have no idea why are you talking about it like it's hypothetical. Iran did whatever it could to get its hands on nukes as fast as it could since Trump destroyed the agreement that Obama signed with Iran.

And it resulted with their top leaders getting assassinated and their nuclear attempts destroyed. So was that really something they should have been doing?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alleged_Libyan_financing_in_th...

The comment didn't suggest that exactly.

> One would hope, but if Allah is protecting them why would they need to fear retaliation?

Israel just launched a perfidious pre-emptive defence by assassinating a lot of their top military leadership. They've probably figured out retaliation is a possibility here - if this is Israel's defence when they aren't even being threatened, imagine what they will do in their defence when the Iranians actually do something directly! Even if the Iranians are legitimately stupid at some level the campaign of missile strikes must have registered that they are vulnerable to missiles.

Jews are a traumatized people. They can never truly shed the insecurity that entire continents and countries can be hostile toward them (the entirety of Europe during ww2). They are making trauma informed decisions, and can never be trusted to do so alone because it’s actual trauma.

The biggest myth is that Israel is a first world country but there’s no evidence of it. Buildings and infrastructure do not make you a first world country (behold China). Any country that is that brutal will never meet the criteria, it’s a third world country that is new and learning just like every other third world country.

Blood-thirst (blood-rage? They see red.) is an understatement when it comes to this country as of 2025. We need things to change over the next 20 years. They do not know how to manage life due to just how intense their historical trauma was. There’s no one over there with a cool head and clinically there wouldn’t be (how do you just act normal after the holocaust? You can’t.)

The failure of the Trump admin is unique and unlike any other administration. It is was once accepted that Israel is not level headed (again, not an insult, one cannot be balanced if one emerges through hellfire) and cannot dictate foreign policy. Trump just said “fuck it, go ahead traumatized child, do as you please” - this was pure insanity.

Love is protecting your brothers and sisters from themselves (my brothers keeper). The world did not get safer, where are the cooler heads in the room?

Past experiences surely must colour peoples' and nations' attitudes, but will they go all the way to completely dictate them? I find this an over-reach. There are simpler explanations. Nations want to dominate their immediate geographical neighborhoods so that they can ensure their own citizens' prosperity and security. Israel and Iran are not different in that at all. Israel is in a position to pursue this regional hegemony by overwhelmingly violent means thanks to the unconditional support of the US, while Iran that does not enjoy the same level of support from its own super-power allies, China and Russia, is not capable of dominating with aggression, so it has to try other means: diplomacy, alliances with regional militias, and so on.

I think, that suffices to explain the differences in behaviour between the two nations. Other than that, you'll see the same behaviour from both: they'll attack whomever they consider to be their regional rival, they'll retaliate when attacked, and so on.

I'm all for attacking Trump when justified, but given how Biden managed Gaza it is spectacularly unclear that we would expect a different outcome from Dems.

I don’t think Biden would have done it. Take the moving of the US embassy to Jerusalem, which happened in Trump’s first term. What stable President agitates a situation like that? He was uniquely allied with Netanyahu for awhile, and Netanyahu has exclaimed that Trump is the best friend Israel ever had:

https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/netanyahu-calls...

Because I lived there for 6 months during a study abroad I randomly ended up doing. I'd never had a Jewish or Muslim friend before going. Living there I had Palestinian and Jewish neighbors. I had to read lots of books on both sides of the topic and write papers on them. Along with deep conversations with both Israelis and Palestinians. Admittedly more with Israelis than Palestinians. Though I do have some fond memories of Palestinians.

The experience forced me out of my previously much more sheltered technology and American centric world view which is what I'd say was your somewhat average 16 year old American's viewpoint, if on the more liberal atheistic side at the time. I likely would've been convinced of the same things as yourself when I was younger and more naive and saw the headlines I do now.

That said, I'm not pro-Netanyahu or many of the things he does. He's a hardliner.

> Jews are a traumatized people. They can never truly shed the insecurity that entire continents and countries can be hostile toward them (the entirety of Europe during ww2).

You're not wrong. They're also a resilient people. Remember it's not just WWII, but most Israeli's, their parents and grand parents have also grown up with constant war or thread of war.

It does affect psychology when many neighboring groups like Iran and Hamas not only want to destroy your state but also want to kill all Jews. That's their public official positions. It's not just rhetoric either as they routinely attack. Ultimately Palestinian leaders and political groups have never wanted peace with Israel from everything I've studied, and neither does Iran.

Finally Israel was making progress towards peace with the Abraham accords (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham_Accords) which Trump helped negotiate. Some scholars I've read believe this is part of what led to Hamas's October 7th attacks as they would loose influence if Arab nations started making peace with Israel.

> Bloodthirst is understatement when it comes to this country as of 2025.

It's easy to throw such statements around. However, look at the state of most of the region. What Israel is doing is tame compared to some of the atrocities occurring but which don't make regular news.

this.

even though some Israel's actions are spooky (targeted-exploding walkytalkies?), they're at least designed to minimize civilian deaths (or at least they're trying)

But... Iran and their ilks (eg. Hamas)? they not only don't give a shit, but actively seek to kill civilians with maximum brutality (baby beheadings, killing & parading even with non-israeli bodies)

“Tame”

Either you have no respect for my eyes or brain or I am truly an idiot. Write blog articles explaining how what we see and hear is bullshit and post it here please, we’ll assess.

1200 != 50,000

But here is the true mind fuck, 1200 != even one innocent.

Barbaric != Tame

So we march people down from the North to the South, level the area, and then logistically starve them? Tame. Do you know how the Americans marched the Native Americans to death? We’re all fucking idiots to you right?

HN is just subset of society. You’ve got everyone here, including Israeli apologists. Plenty of Jewish developers too. You don’t have to live or die by your “team” when they are literally fucking wrong about this.

Your typical educated American does not even attempt to defend most American policy since the end of WW2 (there’s literally not a single right thing America did). Maybe we’re lucky that we get to have such clear heads about it finally, and I hope the same for those on the wrong side of history on this one, however long it takes.

When one realizes they were barbarically wrong is a true moment of personal and spiritual growth.

The definition of modern national pragmatism appears to be the following based on what so many apologists say:

2 wrongs == 1 right

(The only way this can be correct in anyone’s heart is if emotions have fully overtaken the person)

Let me fix that for you:

2 wrongs != 1 right

A population caught up in a horrible conflict. In part due to the choices of the leaders they've supported for decades now.

> I need a thorough explanation of the images I see out of there. What the hell is 50k dead and ghetto camp conditions?

They're the same tragedies as those from most of the other war torn areas in the region. I hate to say it, but Gaza is at the "risk of famine" while the Sudan and Yemen are in full on famine. There's also two orders of magnitude more civilians suffering in Sudan currently as well. Similarly in Yemen, which is being bombed routinely by Saudis and Americans which include innocent civilian deaths. I've not heard of one anti-Saudi protest by Muslims in the west in recent years.

Where's the constant Wester or Muslim outrage for the 100,000s or millions of civilian deaths directly caused by Houthis, Hamas, Hezbollah or more throughout the region by extremist Islamists?

You can also find the recent videos of interviews with Palestinians where they praise and thank Trump for giving the food (GHF) while they curse Hamas for hoarding the food and using their children as war fodder.

Did the media also show you the videos of the Palestinians in Northern Gaza protesting Hamas for being terrorists and killing their children in March? Many of them understand who started and wanted the war. They call it war and blame Hamas.

Does that justify all the actions of Israel? No, but I also believe Israel also acts to prevent the worse from coming around. They supply water, food, and aid while the other military forces like Hamas, Hezbollah, Houthis, etc do not do that for their enemies civilians. They regularly provide bombing warnings and evacuation notices to civilians, unlike pretty much any other force in the region.

Does the IDF also have bad actors and commit war crimes as well? Yes, but most Israeli's don't want or support that.

> But here is the true mind fuck, 1200 != even one innocent.

Tell that to almost any nations at war. There's always civilian casualties. For the Israelis it's 1200 today, and in their experience it'll be another 1200 tomorrow, and 1200 the day after and so on if they did not attack back and remove Hamas. 50,000+ dead is terrible but the statistics of civilians to combatant casualties are similar to other conflicts in the region, despite Hamas being internationally known for using civilians as shields.

Where's the constant outrage for the 150,000 dead in Yemen due to the fighting there and the 227,000 dying of famine and the ghetto conditions there? The conflict in Palestine isn't that unique in the region except that the media covers Palestine far more. The double standards on display in the west are absurd and masterfully exploited by the Islamist extremists spearheaded by Iran.

And Iran retaliated and actually some of it's missiles inflicted damage. We can only imagine what the damage would be if Isreal patiently waited for the Iran to feel read to attack Israel which it's always advertised as its goal. Also it already happened once. Nations of the region decided they are strong enough to attack Isreal and they did. It was bound to happen again and as the death toll in Isreal in the current conflict shows, despite pre-emptive strike damaging Iran's missile potential significantly, there's only so much you can do with defensive weapons.

In this specific context pre-emptive strike on leaders and long range attack capabilities is not perfidious, it's just about the only thing you can do that's not stupid.

[0] https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-06-13/israel-strikes-on-ira... - "Why is this happening?"

Are you even arguing in good faith? Over the years:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Op9EFTPQhw8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ulXulltxXZg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V21yoWN_U3w

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hLDjGdJC0Q

Bluster isn't a threat that the military are going to respond to. Imagine I used the word "credible" above if you want.

In my mind there is no doubt who the good guys are in that particular conflict. Iran started it decades ago for no reason other than religious hate, has kept it up until now and Iran is the one escalating.

An ongoing war that includes all of Iran proxies.

[1] https://www.terrorism-info.org.il/en/activities-of-saeed-iza...

Qatar has probably funded Hamas more than Iran and now the future Air Force One is a Qatari plane...

“Qatar has historically been a funder of terrorism at a very high level”

   - Donald J. Trump - June 2017

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qatari_support_for_Hamas

What's wrong with this picture? (And I don't mean in the sense of a Futurama meme of Farnsworth saying "I don't want to live on this planet any more").

https://www.timesofisrael.com/for-years-netanyahu-propped-up...

Reality is Israel is run by psychopaths who would be in jail if it weren't for their their cynical use of constant war as a misdirection.

Much like the US. And Russia. And numerous other countries, some of which are still pretending to be democratic.

The entire world order is built on greed, lies, narcissistic grandiosity, and violent murder at industrial scales.

Israeli police began investigating Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu for fraud in 2016. Israeli courts indicted him for multiple cases of fraud in 2019.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trial_of_Benjamin_Netanyahu

That's not what this article says. To quote:

> Thus, amid this bid to impair Abbas, Hamas was upgraded from a mere terror group to an organization with which Israel held indirect negotiations via Egypt, and one that was allowed to receive infusions of cash from abroad.

> Hamas was also included in discussions about increasing the number of work permits Israel granted to Gazan laborers, which kept money flowing into Gaza, meaning food for families and the ability to purchase basic products.

> Israeli officials said these permits, which allow Gazan laborers to earn higher salaries than they would in the enclave, were a powerful tool to help preserve calm.

You are not understanding what the article is saying, because you're mixing up different Palestinians. Palestine has a left wing party, the Palestine Authority, and a right wing party, Hamas. The Palestinian Authority, led by Abbas, recognizes the state of Israel and wants a two-state solution that also establishes a Palestinian state. Hamas does not recognize the state of Israel and wants to destroy it. Netanyahu is against the Palestinian Authority because he's more against giving legitimacy to Palestinian statehood than he's against war. He funded Hamas to delegitimize Abbas/Palestinian statehood/two-state solution/peace.

President Abbas has a PhD in holocaust denial.

Calling the PA left wing isn't accurate. It's also bent on the destruction of Israel and the Jewish people.

From Encyclopaedia Britannica:

"The PA was founded following years of hostility. Secret meetings held in Norway in 1993 between the PLO and Israel led to the signing of the historic Declaration of Principles (the Oslo Accords), in which the two sides agreed to mutual recognition and terms whereby governing functions in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip—occupied by Israel since the Six-Day War of 1967—would be progressively handed over to a Palestinian council."

https://www.britannica.com/topic/Palestinian-Authority

PA is controlled by Fatah, which is "centre-left" to "left-wing" per Wikipedia. If you disagree, edit Wikipedia and cite your sources.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatah

Iran’s Shah, prior to Khomeni was a brutal dictator propped up by the west. Of course he got on with Israel.

The truth stings.

The difference isn't in brutality. It is in the word "Islamic". That is the core of the ideological hostility of the current Iranian government towards Israel.

Or any people, for that matter.

Regardless of the above, the Islamic Republic of Iran calls itself Islamic and takes the velayat-e-faqih system, developed by Khomeini, as divinely inspired.

You just admitted that the specific system of ayatollah rule has 'no core doctrine' supporting it. You acknowledged that this particular form of clerical authority is an innovation that doesn't exist in foundational Islamic teachings. Then you say Khomeini 'developed' velayat-e-faqih as a new system.

So by your own admission: core Islamic doctrine doesn't support this specific form of clerical rule by ayatollahs; and that Khomeini had to 'develop' (i.e., invent) the velayat-e-faqih framework. So, Iran's system is based on this modern Shia innovation, not established Islamic governance models.

But your original claim was that Iran's hostility toward Israel stems from 'Islamic' ideological doctrine. You can't have it both ways, either Iran's policies flow from broadly accepted Islamic teachings, or they flow from Khomeini's specific 20th-century innovation that most Muslims reject.

You've just proven that Iran's system represents one minority sect's modern political invention, not mainstream Islamic doctrine.

You don't need to be an Islamic scholar to know there are two major branches: Sunni and Shia. If you don't know this basic distinction, you shouldn't be making claims about 'Islam' generally. If you do know it, then you're being disingenuous trying to pass off one minority Shia innovation as representative of all Islam.

a) considers itself Islamic, b) it is indeed ruled by scholars of Islam, c) bases its policy and politics on Islam.

You say that they are basically heretics and that the majority of Muslims don't agree with them. So what. I haven't said that all Muslims want to destroy Israel for religious reasons.

If I want to be extra precise, the Islamic Republic of Iran is compelled by Islam as of its own understanding to destroy Israel.

And given that there is no central authority in Islam that would issue binding declarations on what is Islam and what is Heresy, this is basically the norm in the Islamic world. Every nation and community practices Islam as it understands it, which means quite a lot of internal diversity.

Your new claim: Iran follows 'Islam as of its own understanding' and there's no central authority to define what's Islamic.

So you've just admitted that Iran's version isn't representative of Islam generally and that there's no authoritative way to call their interpretation 'Islamic'. That every community 'practices Islam as it understands it'.

This demolishes your original point even further. If anyone can interpret Islam however they want with no central authority, then Iran's actions tell us nothing about 'Islamic' doctrine, they only tell us about Iran's political choices wrapped in religious language.

By your own logic, I could point to: Indonesia, the largest Muslim country, which is democratic and has peaceful relations with Israel. Or the UAE, Bahrain, Morocco, who've normalized relations with Israel. Jordan, Egypt: these have peace treaties with Israel.

I could point to these and say they represent 'Islam as of their own understanding' just as validly as Iran does.

You've essentially argued that Iran's interpretation is just one of many possible interpretations with no special claim to authenticity. That's the opposite of your original claim that Iran's hostility flows from Islamic doctrine.

You started by claiming Iran represents Islamic teaching. Now you're saying every Muslim community makes up their own version. Pick one: you can't have both.

And you still haven't provided a single citation of actual Islamic doctrine supporting violence against Jews, which was the original challenge.

You are engaging in an elaborate No True Scotsman fallacy.

For me, if if walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it is a duck, and I will consider the Islamic Republic of Iran to be Islamic. I don't particularly care about sectarian squabbles what is geniunely Islamic or not.

You've retreated to "if it calls itself Islamic, it's Islamic," like claiming North Korea represents democracy because "Democratic" is in its name.

When you stated "There is no version of Islam that would be representative of Islam generally," you contradict Islamic tradition itself. The Prophet Muhammad, the FOUNDER of the religion said: "My community will never agree upon error" and "Allah's hand is with the congregation" (Source: Tirmidhi). This hadith establishes that consensus (ijma) of the Muslim community is authoritative in Islam.

Look, these facts remain: you admitted Iran's system is Khomeini's modern innovation. Most Muslim nations have peaceful relations with Israel. And you've cited zero Islamic doctrines supporting your claim.

This isn't about religion: it's politics in religious clothing. If Iran's position were truly Islamic, 1.8 billion Muslims would share it. They don't.

Stop conflating one country's politics with an entire faith.

No true Scotsman.

> Third, you preemptively accuse me of the "No True Scotsman" fallacy, but you're the one committing it. You claim "perpetrators of Islamic violence" cite these doctrines, but when pressed for specifics, you can't name them. That's you implying that a Muslim who doesn't commit violence isn't following the "real" Islam, which is literally the No True Scotsman fallacy you're projecting onto me.

I didn’t need to do that. You say you’re an Islamic scholar so you should already be aware of this. I shouldn’t be needing to do research for you.

And you still haven’t defended my original accusation that you repeatedly stated that followers of Islamic violence are somehow un-Islamic - this is a textbook no true Scotsman.

> That's you implying that a Muslim who doesn't commit violence isn't following the "real" Islam

No it isn’t. Many Muslims do not commit violence although Islam itself states it is a violent belief system. Most Christians eat shellfish.

You have not demonstrated how you have brought any evidence that Islam calls for unrestricted violence against Jews or any people.

Here is a link: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44351856

You specifically asked me to put up or shut up and I put up and then you got very angry about it. Surely you must remember?

Are you aware of what the term "unrestricted violence" means?

Do you think that Jews are able to behave without impunity, and if the Muslims have cause to retaliate against them, that means that Islam sanctions unrestricted violence against Jews?

I believe anyone is allowed to behave as they reasonably want, including pointing out all the illness Islam has borne onto the world, for Muslims, for Jews, for Christians, for women, for journalists, for intellectuals and for everyone else.

And you still haven’t responded to the original accusation of no true Scotsman.

> And you still haven’t responded to the original accusation of no true Scotsman.

I've already rebutted that, you only returned with an ipse dixit to say "no but actually Islam is really violent." What we're discussing here is towards deconstructing that point, so also rendering the claim of no true scotsman a moot point (doubly so).

Because you will never be able to make the leap from "Islam allows for violence in limited cases, such as cases of persecution and self defense" to "Islam is violent," without bastardizing disengenuity.

Also, you are quite the hypocrite aren't you? You repeatedly press me to respond to points (even after I responded to them), yet there is a multitude of points of mine that you left unaddressed, even stating that you're going to ignore them, giving me triple (clearly emotionally charged ragequitting) goodbyes, and then coming back to spew more garbage.

Is that why you slid away from the other thread to this one, so people who do not catch that thread do not see your manifest impotencies?

finally, you’ve responded to the point. This isn’t in the text and is your own personal reading. But at least you’ve acknowledged it exists unlike previously: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44350839

> I've already rebutted that

No you haven’t rebutted either example of me pointing out your 'no true Scotsman' fallacy. In https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44350839 you just wrote 'no u' - that's 'tu quoque', another logical fallacy.

If it’s unclear, I am not stating Islam is only violent because the text is violent. I think you might be trying to refute a point I’m not making. There were many reasons why Islam is violent. What do you think causes Islamic violence?

> Is that why you slid away from the other thread to this one

You insult people like a medieval wizard.

Did I forget to read one of your posts on the other thread? I’m sorry, I clearly missed out.

I’m on this thread reminding you of a second instance of you using the no true Scotsman fallacy. Here is a link to remind you: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44372664

Since you claim my interpretation about a 'minority of Jews' is "personal reading not found in the text," let me provide you with the actual scholarship you're apparently incapable of conducting yourself:

The Prophet (ṣ) said: "The Dajjal (false Messiah) would be followed by seventy thousand Jews of Isfahan wearing Persian shawls" (Sahih Muslim 2944): this is the exact hadith text, not my "personal reading." Seventy thousand Jews from one city constitutes what exactly, if not a minority of world Jewry?

You think you can analyze Islamic eschatology based on one isolated hadith while remaining completely ignorant of the broader literature. The Prophet (ṣ) said: 'The Dajjal will appear at the end of time when religion is taken lightly' (Sunan Ibn Majah 4067); meaning everything about about the Dajjal and his followers is explicitly END-TIMES prophecy, not prescriptive commands for daily Muslim behavior. Not my 'personal reading', this is only basic Islamic eschatology.

The same Prophet (ṣ) said: "Nothing between the creation of Adam until the establishment of the Hour is a greater tribulation than the affair of the False Messiah" (Sahih Muslim 2946); meaning his followers, including these Jews, are portrayed as bringing the ultimate tribulation and persecution to humanity, not being victims themselves.

The hadith literature is explicit about the Dajjal's persecution. The Prophet (ṣ) said: "Verily, preceding the False Messiah will be years of deception, in which the truthful are belied, the liars are believed, the trustworthy are discredited, the treacherous are trusted, and the disgraceful speak" (Musnad Ahmad 13298). He also said: "The people will flee from the False Messiah into the mountains" (Sahih Muslim 2945), describing Muslims fleeing persecution, not initiating it.

You desperately claim victory because I acknowledged a hadith exists: something I never denied. You think that the acknowledgement of a hadith is akin to acknowledgement of your faulty interpretation. How stupid, Mr. Non Sequitor!

Your sophisticated theological analysis amounts to: 'I found one hadith mentioning future conflict, therefore Islam is violent'; while remaining completely ignorant of the context, the broader literature, and the specific circumstances described. This is like reading one sentence from Revelation about Armageddon and declaring Christianity inherently violent.

Now you are moving your goalposts with your retreat to 'there are many reasons Islam is violent' without specifying any. When challenged on logical fallacies, you ignore the rebuttals. When asked about contradictory historical evidence (link: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44350839), you promise a flailing disengagement which you are unable to adhere because of how thoroughly emotionally rattled you are by having your ignorant bigotry challenged.

Is this really the intellectual standard you want to defend? Because at this point, watching you flail around these basic logical contradictions is starting to feel less like a debate and more like intellectual charity work.

Better to insult like a medieval wizard than think like a modern idiot. Keep it up, I am truly enjoying this and want to see how inexhaustible is your faulty thinking and how much contradictory emotional fuel is behind your promise to stop speaking to me.

Seems like it's not just Islam that lives rent free in your head, but now this Muslim is too.

No. You asked for a hadith which was calling for violence as if you didn’t know that one existed and then were provided with one.

> one isolated hadith

Yes. You asked for one. I didn’t have to provide you with one but I gave you one anyway. You haven’t even thanked me yet.

> something I never denied

You called it a string of gobbledygook, even though it has since been realised that you know exactly what it was referring to.

> Now you are moving your goalposts with your retreat to 'there are many reasons Islam is violent' without specifying any.

There were no goal posts - I never limited the reasons that Islam is violent. In fact, I asked you to come up with your reasons why Islam is violent, and you have not provided any.

> Umar ibn al-Khattab

You really think this is contradictory historical evidence? If you’re wondering why I think he made Jewish people second class citizens rather than slaughtering them I’m presuming it’s because he liked money from overtaxation. Why do you think he made Jewish people second-class citizens, rather than slaughtering them?

> Better to insult like a medieval wizard than think like a modern idiot.

Really? Because you stopped communicating that way, which makes me feel that you’re a little bit self-conscious about it.

And yes: two no true Scotsmans still undefended.

You aren't responding to the fact that you're committing the composition fallacy: taking one eschatological reference about future conflict and claiming it makes all of Islam "violent." You never addressed this fundamental logical flaw in your argument because you know you can't defend it.

You keep claiming I'm committing the "No True Scotsman" fallacy, but you're misapplying it. When I said Iran's actions are "politics in religious clothing" rather than true Islamic doctrine, I wasn't redefining Islam to exclude counterexamples: I was making an evidential argument. I challenged OP to provide Islamic doctrinal support for Iran's positions and he didn't. I pointed to empirical evidence: the fact that 1.8 billion Muslims don't share Iran's position. I was distinguishing between political claims and religious doctrine based on evidence, not making arbitrary exclusions.

The key difference is: No True Scotsman would be "Iran isn't really Islamic" (circular reasoning), but my argument was "Iran's actions aren't supported by Islamic doctrine" (evidential claim requiring proof). OP failed to provide the doctrinal evidence I requested, making this a substantive claim requiring evidence, not an arbitrary exclusion.

Now, let's address your contradictory positions. In our previous thread, when I demanded citations, you wrote:

"I understand you want me to cite specific hadiths, as I said earlier I think any Islamic scholar would already know which ones" and "You have no right to demand anything from me." Now you're acting wounded that I haven't "thanked" you for providing a hadith reference. If I "already know" these hadiths as you claimed, why would I thank you for telling me something I supposedly already knew? And why are you demanding gratitude for amateur citation while completely ignoring the multiple hadiths I provided with proper scholarly context? Quite clownish.

Second, you're conflating citation with interpretation. You pointed to a hadith: congratulations, you can use Google! But when I provided you with proper context, multiple supporting hadiths, and explained the distinction between eschatological prophecy and prescriptive religious practice, you called it "gobbledygook" and fled the discussion. Citing a text isn't the same as defending an interpretation of it, which you've never done.

Third, your claim that I "never denied" the hadith exists is another deflection. The question was always about your interpretation of what it means. You think pointing to end-times prophecy about a minority of Jews following the false Messiah somehow proves "Islam calls for unrestricted violence against Jews." I systematically dismantled that interpretation with proper textual context, which you aren't addressing, because you simply can't.

Fourth, you accuse me of "moving goalposts" when you're the one who abandoned your original argument. You affirmed that Islamic doctrine calls for unrestricted violence against Jews, I challenged you to explain why Muhammad's direct companion Umar ibn al-Khattab invited Jews back to Jerusalem after 500 years of Christian expulsion, and you've never answered. Instead, you're now retreating to vague claims about "many reasons Islam is violent" without specifying any.

In fact your Umar ibn al-Khattab deflection proves you don't understand the example. You mention him as if it supports your position, but Umar's protection of Jews directly contradicts your claim that Islam mandates violence against them. You're citing evidence against your own argument. If what you say is true, he would not have invited them back to Jerusalem, and he would slaughter them in any case.

It's very clear that when pressed for basic rigor, you flee to different threads hoping people won't notice your contradictions. You promised to stop communicating with me multiple times but keep returning because you are lathered in the discomfort from being so absolutely deconstructed.

What we have here is your inability to defend the interpretations you're making from the citations you provide.

That's the difference between scholarship and propaganda.

Yes, I am. To make it simpler, I’ll use your analogy: you asked me for a car with a red door and I provided one. Even though you say you are a scholar of cars and are aware that there are many instances of cars have red doors. Furthermore, you did not thank me.

The disingenuous deception will never cease with you, I see.

I never asked you to prove Islam has violent elements. I challenged your affirmation that Islam mandates unrestricted violence against Jews. You showed one end-times hadith about a minority and declared victory.

Your logic: "I found one violent reference, therefore Islam is violent." By this reasoning: humanity commits violence, therefore you, nailer, are violent; because you're human (which is doubtful, since you're behaving more like a broken bot at this point). One red door doesn't make the entire car red.

You're still avoiding the actual questions: Why did Umar invite Jews back to Jerusalem? Why did he not slaughter them?

Why haven't 1.8 billion Muslims enacted this "unrestricted violence" you claim is a part of the religion?

Citation without interpretation isn't scholarship: it's Google, but in your case it's more like Altavista.

As opposed to the classic sincere deception.

> Your logic: "I found one violent reference, therefore Islam is violent." By this reasoning: humanity commits violence, therefore you, nailer, are violent; because you're human

No - as discussed earlier, not every follower of Islam is individually violent, like not every human is violent.

> You're still avoiding the actual questions: Why did Umar invite Jews back to Jerusalem? Why did he not slaughter them?

I answered this earlier: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44381029

> Why haven't 1.8 billion Muslims enacted this "unrestricted violence" you claim is a part of the religion?

I answered that earlier too: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44373946

I previously asked you what your own thoughts are regarding why Islam is violent, you didn’t answer. Your most recent post seems to indicate that you don’t think Islam is violent at all. What is your own explanation for the widespread worldwide occurrence of Islamic violence, if Islam itself is not violent?

1. "As opposed to the classic sincere deception."

Cute wordplay, but you're still avoiding the substance. Your disingenuous behavior includes but is not limited to: misrepresenting my arguments, claiming you "answered" questions you dodged, and shifting burden of proof when cornered.

2. "No as discussed earlier, not every follower of Islam is individually violent, like not every human is violent."

This actually destroys your argument. You've been claiming Islam mandates unrestricted violence against Jews, but now admit not every Muslim enacts this supposed mandate. Your own logic proves that either:

A) The doctrine doesn't actually mandate what you claim, OR

B) 1.8 billion Muslims are failing to follow their own religion

If you choose option B, you're committing the exact No True Scotsman fallacy you've been accusing me of: redefining 'true Islam' to exclude the vast majority of Muslims who don't commit this supposed mandated violence.

3. Your "I already answered" evasions

You claim you answered the Umar ibn al-Khattab question by saying he "liked money from overtaxation."

If Islamic doctrine truly mandated unrestricted violence against Jews, then Umar, a direct companion of the Prophet and one of the most revered figures in Islamic history, would be religiously obligated to follow it. Instead, he went OUT OF HIS WAY to invite Jews back to Jerusalem after 500 years of Christian expulsion.

Your 'tax money' explanation is incorrect on multiple levels:

First, Jerusalem already contained Christians who vastly outnumbered Jews across the Middle East. Umar had no economic need to invite back a tiny Jewish minority when he already had a much larger Christian tax base.

Second, your "overtaxation" claim is historically false. The dhimmi system wasn't exploitation, it was a social contract. The actual jizya rates under Umar demonstrate this clearly:

The jizya was structured as a modest, graduated tax based on ability to pay:

The wealthy paid 4 dirhams annually

The middle class paid 2 dirhams annually

The working poor paid only 1 dirham annually

In regions using gold currency, it was 4 dinars per year

In silver currency regions, it was 40 dirhams per year

These amounts represented reasonable, graduated taxation rather than exploitation. This wasn't "overtaxation" by any historical standard.

Medieval European serfs typically paid far higher proportions of their income in various taxes and obligations to feudal lords.

Non-Muslims paid jizya in exchange for:

A. Military protection by Islamic forces

B. Exemption from military service (only Muslims were required to enlist)

C. Legal protection and religious autonomy

D. Integration into the economic system

The rates were deliberately affordable and often collected in goods rather than currency when cash wasn't available. This was a protection arrangement, not exploitation.

If Islam truly mandated violence against Jews, why would Umar create a system specifically designed to protect them from violence while exempting them from military obligations at such reasonable rates?

He showed deliberate favor to Jews when he had zero obligation to do so, implementing a tax system that was proportional, fair, and designed for long-term coexistence rather than exploitation.

This demonstrates what Islamic governance actually looks like according to someone who learned directly from Muhammad. Your interpretation would make one of Islam's most celebrated figures a religious failure.

Similarly, your claim that you "answered" why 1.8 billion Muslims haven't enacted this violence is circular reasoning that assumes your conclusion.

4. Your massive burden shifting attempt: "What is your own explanation for the widespread worldwide occurrence of Islamic violence, if Islam itself is not violent?"

More examples of textbook circular reasoning. You're asking me to explain "Islamic violence" as if its existence as a distinct category is proven fact. I could equally demand you explain "Christian violence" (Crusades, Inquisition, Northern Ireland), "Buddhist violence" (Myanmar), "Hindu violence" (Kashmir), or "atheist violence" (Stalin, Mao).

The question isn't why violence exists. Humans commit violence for political, economic, territorial, and tribal reasons regardless of religion. The question is whether Islam uniquely mandates it.

5. "Your most recent post seems to indicate that you don't think Islam is violent at all."

False, and a strawman. I never said Islam contains zero provisions for violence. I said you cannot prove it mandates UNRESTRICTED violence against Jews specifically. There's a massive difference between acknowledging that Islam allows for violence in limited circumstances such as persecution and self-defense (true of most legal and religious systems) and your specific claim about doctrinal mandates for unrestricted violence.

6. The core issues you keep avoiding:

After all these posts, you still have:

ONE end-times hadith about a minority of Jews in eschatological prophecy

ZERO prescriptive commands for present-day Muslims

ZERO explanation beyond unfounded speculation which I have rebutted for why Muhammad's companions protected Jews

ZERO response to the contextual hadiths I provided showing Muslims fleeing persecution

ZERO engagement with the distinction between prophecy and religious law

7. Your fundamental logical fallacy which is still unaddressed

You found ONE eschatological hadith about end-times and declared it proves Islam mandates present day violence.

By your exact logic:

Christianity mandates violence because Revelation describes end-times warfare

America mandates violence because our military exists

Humans mandate violence because we have the capacity for it

Defend this composition fallacy or abandon your argument. You cannot keep dodging this fundamental flaw. Well you can keep dodging it, which you will because you have no response, but we all see what you're doing.

Here's your choice, no more deflections:

Either:

A) Admit you cannot distinguish between eschatological prophecy and prescriptive religious law, making your entire argument invalid,

OR

B) Provide actual prescriptive Islamic doctrine commanding present-day unrestricted violence against Jews (which doesn't exist).

Name ONE verse or hadith that commands present day Muslims to commit unrestricted violence against Jews.

You claim to be citing Islamic doctrine, prove it, or concede the point.

Your inability to do this after so many bankrupt posts while making increasingly desperate deflections speaks volumes about the strength of your position.

The inability to properly respond is your concession.

Stop imagining. Cite them.

What specific verses or doctrines are you referring to? Give us the exact citations.

Because once you do, I have a very simple question for you: If those verses mean what you think they mean, why didn't Umar ibn al-Khattab, the second Caliph of Islam and Muhammad's direct companion, know about them?

When Umar took Jerusalem from the Byzantines in 638 CE, instead of slaughtering Jews, he invited them back to a city they'd been banned from for 500 years under Christian rule. He protected their religious practices and established legal frameworks for their protection.

So either:

These verses don't exist or don't mean what you think, OR the second Caliph, who learned Islam directly from Muhammad, somehow didn't understand basic Islamic doctrine.

Which is it?

Put up or shut up. Cite the specific verses you're claiming exist, then explain why Muhammad's direct successor acted in the exact opposite way.

I have lived the last 44 years in Australia, the United Kingdom and now the United States, each of which have been victims of Islamic violence in different ways.

I understand you want me to cite specific hadiths, as I said earlier I think any Islamic scholar would already know which ones, so you’re not arguing in good faith. I want you to know I am familiar with the ‘no true scotsman’ fallacy and feel you will employ it. You have no right to demand anything from me.

As an Islamic scholar you are also familiar with the concept of dhimmis. I think the reason you didn’t mention them here is because you know Islam creating laws to treat others as second class citizens is shameful, and you did now acknowledge these because you are not arguing in good faith.

I won’t stop talking about Islamic violence because you demand I do so, you have no right to demand this of anyone and your personal beliefs deserve no special respect.

First, you affirmed there are Islamic doctrines calling for violence against Jews. When I asked for citations, you suddenly can't provide any because "any Islamic scholar would already know." This is the intellectual equivalent of "my girlfriend goes to another school." If these doctrines are so obvious and pervasive, citing them should take you thirty seconds, not paragraphs of deflection.

Second, you accuse me of limiting the discussion when the exact opposite happened. You affirmed a specific claim about anti-Jewish doctrines, I challenged it, and when you couldn't defend it, YOU tried to escape by broadening it to "Islamic violence globally." I actually expanded my challenge by saying I haven't found doctrines calling for unrestricted violence against Jewish people "or any people, for that matter." You're now misrepresenting the exchange because you can't handle either version of the challenge.

Third, you preemptively accuse me of the "No True Scotsman" fallacy, but you're the one committing it. You claim "perpetrators of Islamic violence" cite these doctrines, but when pressed for specifics, you can't name them. That's you implying that a Muslim who doesn't commit violence isn't following the "real" Islam, which is literally the No True Scotsman fallacy you're projecting onto me.

Fourth, you brought up dhimmis thinking it was devastating, but you just wrecked your own position. The dhimmi system was a legal framework for protection and coexistence, revolutionary for its time when other civilizations were practicing actual genocide. If Islam mandated killing Jews, why would it simultaneously create detailed legal protections for them? You literally cited evidence that contradicts your entire premise.

Fifth, your appeal to personal geography is irrelevant. Living in three countries doesn't make you knowledgable in Islam any more than living near hospitals makes you qualified to comment on surgery. You're using personal experience to avoid rigor, the exact opposite of truthful discourse.

Sixth, you claim I have "no right to demand" citations from you. In discussions in pursuit of truth, when you make factual claims, providing evidence isn't a courtesy, it's basic intellectual honesty. You don't get to make assertions about Islamic doctrine then hide behind wounded feelings when asked to support them.

Finally, you still haven't addressed Umar ibn al-Khattab. This isn't some minor historical figure, he's the second Caliph, Muhammad's direct companion, who conquered Jerusalem and immediately invited Jews back after 500 years of Christian expulsion. If Islamic doctrine mandates violence against Jews, then either:

a) these doctrines don't exist or don't mean what you claim, OR b) Muhammad's own companion fundamentally misunderstood basic Islamic teaching (which you seem to be more privvy to, despite your lack of citation)

You cannot escape this logical knot you've tied around yourself. Every byte of text you write avoiding this question proves you know your position is indefensible.

This isn't about silencing you, it's about holding you accountable for claims you cannot substantiate.

Edit: actually wait, I’m gonna come back for five seconds to voice dictate that I previously discussed calls for violence from Islam against everyone, rather than specifically Jews, in the first sentence of the reply that you didn’t seem to have read, but there’s your example for Jews, and your moment of shame on either being not an Islamic scholar or having been exposed to have lied. Which again we both know is permissible under Islam for the purposes of furthering Islam. Goodbye to you and your terrible beliefs.

Edit 2: I made no reference to my own personal geography rather than lived experience of Islamic violence. That you would miss characterise one for the other reveals the same thing about you and your terrible beliefs as your mischaracterisation of a system that treated Jews second class citizens. Now begone with your nonsense.

I wouldn't even dare to say this is the writing level of a kindergartner, because that would be an insult to kindergartners. So flee you fool, Adieu.

P.S.: The multiple desperate edits after saying 'goodbye' twice really sell the whole 'I've demolished your argument' claim. Classic.

P.P.S.: Funny how someone who 'stopped reading at the first sentence' managed to respond to points from my fifth paragraph. Even your lies are lazy.

It’s enough for our audience to Google and expose you either about being an Islamic scholar or lying about Islam not calling for violence, yet again.

But I can and I did. You read it, remember?

Bravo! How do the mirrors you look into withstand such a face?

One can’t be bigoted towards ideas. You claimed to be an Islamic scholar, now you don’t seem to know what Islam is.

This is what is called a wolf in sheep's clothing.

For example, these ayatollahs, who have forgotten more about islam than any muslim I've ever discussed with has ever known, claim that women who refuse to cover up (it was really more burning hijabs and demonstrating) can't be executed according to islamic doctrine for that, if they were young and virgins. Sounds great.

Except what they decided what this "islamic doctrine" meant was to have them raped repeatedly by soldiers ... and THEN execute them. Virgin problem solved.

https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2023/12/iran-security...

Oh here is the list of credentials of khamenei, the person in charge of that. But let me guess, you "know better" and "know" this somehow isn't islam. Of course, you aren't willing to do anything about it either ...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ali_Khamenei

Some highlights:

"Khamenei's education began at the age of four, by learning the Quran at Maktab;[7] he spent his basic and advanced levels of seminary studies at the hawza of Mashhad, under mentors such as Sheikh Hashem Qazvini and Ayatollah Milani. Then, he went to Najaf in 1957,[26] but soon returned to Mashhad due to his father's unwillingness to let him stay there. In 1958, he settled in Qom where he attended the classes of Seyyed Hossein Borujerdi and Ruhollah Khomeini.[7]"

You say that Muhammad 'used peace treaties as weapons of war, against Jews', but the historical record shows the complete opposite, and the full story makes your accusation look absurd.

The Banu Qurayza violated the Treaty of Medina during wartime, which was considered an act of treason in violation of the constitution agreed by all citizens of Medina, including the Banu Qurayza Jews.¹

They broke their treaty obligations by conspiring with attacking forces during the siege of Medina.

But here's the part that completely destroys your narrative: *The Banu Qurayza themselves appointed Sa'd ibn Mu'adh as their judge, and declared they would agree with whatever was his verdict.*²

They chose their own judge: Sa'd ibn Mu'adh, who was from the Aws tribe and had been their ally.

And the judgment? *The verdict for the Banu Qurayza was consistent with the Old Testament, specifically based on Deuteronomy 20:12-14.*³ Sa'd judged them to execution according to Jewish law, not Islamic law.

So let me get this straight: The Jews broke the treaty, they requested to be judged by their own ally, that ally judged them according to their own Torah, and somehow this becomes Muhammad "using peace treaties as weapons against Jews"?

This is the exact opposite of what you claimed. The Jews broke the treaty, chose their own judge, and were judged by their own law.

If someone gets such a well-documented historical event completely backwards while making inflammatory accusations, that tells you everything you need to know about the reliability of their other claims.

1. W. Montgomery Watt, Muhammad at Medina (Oxford University Press, 1956). Fred Donner, Muhammad and the Believers (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2010)

2. William Muir, The Life of Mahomet (Smith, Elder & Co., 1861), Vol. 3, Alfred Guillaume, The Life of Muhammad (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1955).

3. Deuteronomy 20:12-14 (Hebrew Bible); Barakat Ahmad, Muhammad and the Jews (Vikas Publishing, 1979).

I am pretty sure Iran's current regime wins the brutal dictatorship game

The Federation of American Scientists reported their torture methods included:

"electric shock, whipping, beating, inserting broken glass and pouring boiling water into the rectum, tying weights to the testicles, and the extraction of teeth and nails".

It’s very clear to me Israel has had some of the most retarded foreign policy experts for decades now. The truth is the same truth we have in the U.S, 70+ million that voted for Trump harbor a higher degree of racism that is near impossible to stop (will take generations). Israelis HATE Palestinians, and therefore they cannot make even the most obvious game theory choices on building better safety environments (finance and launch a multi decade campaign to uplift Gaza from poverty of mind, heart, and material - unless you are fucking racist and would rather live in conflict than EVER give an inch.)

Well, it's outcome of how they were treated.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1948_Arab%E2%80%93Israeli_War

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six-Day_War

If everybody hates you anyways you eventually morph into the thing that deserves that hatred.

Allah or Jahwe, what's the difference. Both countries are some kind of theocracies, that see infidels as inferior. If Israel has nukes, so should Iran. At least Iran is Shia, so different from the most Muslims, which are Sunni.

...there is no difference. Islam and Judaism trace to Abrahamic monotheism. One through the son Isaac, the other through Ishmael.

By what means are the israeli nukes (I assume thats whats meant by WMDs?) illegal? They didn't sign the Non-Proliferation Treaty and I don't think spying and stealing is illegal between countries under international law.

In Iran's case this is further compounded by their consistent anti Israeli PR and anti-Israeli militias funding.

100%. The Iranian regime is not stupid. The "existential threat" bs being peddled by a certain government is simply to give cover to illegal attacks on a sovereign nation. This is "WMDs in Iraq" all over again.

Believe people when they tell you what they are going to do. Even if Iran wouldn’t use it if they had it, threatening to use it shifts the probability for them using it.

Khomeini isn’t on Kim jong un’s level

I'm not sure how can you say that, now that they are dead, completely due to how they positioned themselves on the regional and global landscape.

That's just being deluded, being a in open air prison is different from being a sovereign nation.

Who has "legal" WMDs - the P5? Israel is a non-signatory to NPT, meaning their WMDs are as legal as anyone else's.

https://www.bu.edu/history/files/2015/04/Khalaji-Apocalyptic...

Mutual destruction makes sense when you're a death cult and the enemy is evil. Iran nuking Israel knowing full well they will get nuked back IS rational if your belief is that Allah will reward you for it in the afterlife and they do sincerly believe that.

You should read books published by reformed Islamists. Radical by Maajid Nawaz is a good one.

They profess to believe (and they are sincere) that they will be rewarded for dying killing Israelis. There's a reason that if I tell you a story about a suicide bomber blowing up a public square in political protest you do not have to wonder what religion they are. It's not because all Muslims are insane, they aren't, it's because some of them have beliefs that make that action rational.

(For example, see how Hamas will not surrender even when offered free passage out of Gaza. They'd rather Israel grind their way through the Palestinian population bomb by bomb because they think every Palestinian killed goes to heaven. If they were rational as we understand the world, they'd realize their plight is hopeless and the only thing they ensure by staying is civillian deaths.)

Yup.

Hamas will fight to the last Palestinian. They could have ended the Gaza war a year ago (or more). All they have to say is: "Here are the hostages. Here are our weapons. We are now shoemakers."

Why don't they do this?

Because they would rather fight to the last Palestinian child.

Hamas has agency. They could end war any time since October 8, 2023.

Then Israeli forces colluded with Christian militias to massacre Palestinians in their camps.

Hamas was never going to disarm and hand back the hostages based on "Trust me, bro".

Hamas is a death cult. They will fight to the last Gazan child.

They have agency. They could end the war tomorrow, or a year ago.

This is just... utterly absurd. The entity killing children (literally on a daily basis!), bombing hopsitals, schools, water treatment facilities etc, and carrying out campaigns of terrorism across the Middle East, is the rogue nuclear state of Israel.

'Propaganda' doesn't quite cover it; I think we need a new word for propaganda that is so delusional and verifyiably false, that it has no basis in any reality.

From their perspective it’s all wins. Every bomb Israel drops sends their people to heaven and makes Israel look bad to the world.

The hardest part of conversing with a lot of people about this situation is getting them to understand the idea of a death cult. Once you accept that some people not only don’t fear death but actively seek it for themselves and their tribe, the Middle East makes a lot more sense. There’s so much evidence both in what they say (they do not hide it) and what they do but so much of the west refuses to accept it.

What I try to emphasize is that Hamas has agency. They make the decision to keep fighting, or stop fighting.

To deny Hamas agency is to dehumanize them. They have as much agency as Israel or any other actor.

And they are a death cult.

With two million Gazans between their tunnels and the IDF.

There is no way to make that nice or neat or pleasant.

1. They kill you (because God will give them the eternal hookup)

2. You kill them (same as #1)

3. Nobody kills anyone

Suicide bombing seems crazy and far from rational to those of us who aren’t in the death cult. But if you look at the actions of radical Islamists from that perspective, it is entirely rational and in line with both their stated beliefs and their actions.

why do they not do this? israel has had the ability to end the war since before its inception.

the answer to why is no surprise, the same as hamas' reason to not surrender. the israeli goal is the disappearance of all palestinians, and hamas so happens to be made up of palestinians.

What?

You understand what would happen next, right?

Is there a single time in history when that has occurred? And if so, what happened next?

What a fantastically violent thing to say or propose.

>the israeli goal is the disappearance of all palestinians

If that is true, why are so many Palestinians alive?

If that is true, how do Palestinians have a population growth rate higher than any European country?

Palestine: https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/state-of-pale...

Europe: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_European_countries_by_...

1) They could not operate them. It isn't just about authorization sequence, it's about having all of the required electronics. You need satellites that point and guide the ICBMs. All of those were in Moscow hands. Even if Ukraine could ignite them, it could not launch them or set their paths, etc.

2) They did not have the budget to guard them, let alone maintain them, even less reverse engineer. The biggest risk was that rough states with deep pockets would buy those rockets on the black market (and Ukraine notably sold out most of their soviet arsenal).

3) Thus, the only real asset was the nuclear material itself. An asset that was more likely going to end up on the black market than do anything useful for Ukraine's defense.

The value of nuclear weapons is in the warheads not delivery vehicles. Even then Ukraine absolutely could maintain a trimmed down nuclear arsenal with the missiles/engines serviced by Yuzhmash. After all bare ass Russia did it in the 1990s somehow. All the American financing of nuclear security to Russia would have been proportionally redirected to Ukraine.

Then, Ukraine possessed a stockpile of highly enriched uranium all way until 2011. It was indeed sold off under Yanukovich to a rogue state though: Russia.

There is one huge drawback to not signing the memorandum: Lukashenka's Belarus (another signatory) would have also kept the nukes. This is however never brought up by the memorandum fans and non-proliferation enjoyers on the Internet precisely because it's not something they would have minded.

There's nothing wrong, what I wrote literally comes from official declassified documents and reports, you can read what insiders had to say.

Ukrainians didn't want them, feared their meltdown and their inability to even just maintain them. The rest of the world knew they were bound to end up in a rogue's actor hands very soon.

https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/sites/default/files/2024-01/slate....

https://www.belfercenter.org/publication/ukraine-illuminated...

Either way you seem to contradict yourself. On one hand Ukraine, then a major owner of former Soviet military industrial complex could not maintain or use the weapons. On the other you insist unspecified rogue actors would be skilled enough to maintain and use them. Make up your mind.

So the rest of the world did not know anything, as the perfect safety record of enriched nuclear fuel in Ukraine illustrates. They did want for the nukes to end up in Russia for the proliferation fears and convenience of negotiating with one power. The decision turned out ultimately misguided, contributing to the unraveling of the postwar world order we see today (ironically including the proliferation of nuclear technology to the rogue states). Bill Clinton, about as insider as it gets have expressed his regrets about it last year.

No you don't. Cold war ICBMs all used intertial guidance. The most advanced in the form of the MX had a max CEP of 90 m.

1) Nukes were built mostly by Ukrainian engineers. They would do just fine. They could also build and launch satellites if needed.

2) So Ukraine couldn't launch them because they needed electronics and satellites, but some rogue state with deep pocket could? Okay.

3) Of course!

Comrade, that is Russian propaganda you are disseminating here.

This sounds ridiculous.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_atomic_bomb_project#Log...

You can see the link in GP comment by yourself.

Even basic logic - Ukraine had the technical know-how to do whatever they wanted with the nukes. Moscow didn't have control, at best on paper - if they had control, there was no need for the Budapest Memorandum.

I keep debunking this propaganda point over and over again lol

You have to process massive piles of mass into a very small fraction. And you have to collect all those rocks. And that’s just for fission.

As long as any country with preemptive strike capability exists, and satellites exist… I just don’t see how anyone could do it.

If that was viable, why would Biden not have done so during the years he had?

And you know this how? Accordingly to all those initial predictions Russia should be already disintegrated and fallen under heavy sanctions, Putin's regime replaced etc. etc. I suspect all these analytics and think tanks should be cleaning toilets instead.

Also there is a line in that backing crossing which may lead to an all out nuclear war. Rational countries that matter understandably do not want to test it unless their existence is really threatened.

Please, take a 15 minutes to educate yourself:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_Armed_Forces#Structure_...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_Rocket_Forces

Once you've obtained some nukes, complete with decent rockets to liv them, nobody is going to mess with you too badly, or try to take the nukes back; you're now a member if the club.

Japan or South Korea would likely be able to produce nuclear weapons in a few months if they needed to. I bet even Ukraine could, with its remaining nuclear plants and relatively advanced industry, and are on friendly terms with the US.

But if you made enemies with the big members of the nuclear club, and with the US in particular, they will do everything to stop you, and your situation would become much harder; that's the case with Iran.

I never understood the logic.. (or maybe it's the theatric element?) There are other WMD that seem much simpler. If they hypothetically release some horrible biological agent in Israel - it could incapacitate the country overnight

Or set off a dirty bomb to make huge regions unlivable (just the perception of radiation risk would preclude many from living there.. see Fukushima)

Or had them, and then gave them up because they were under the impression that they would be protected if they did so; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukraine_and_weapons_of_mass_de...

It's not that simple. Those countries were destined towards collapse with or without nuclear weapons. Iraq, Libya, Syria—those are three countries that fell into catastrophic civil wars, along internal conflict lines, in power vacuums succeeding an unpopular dictator. None of those autocracies were stable in the long-term. (But a nuclear weapon is quite stable; it succeeds the falls of governments and passes on to whoever replaces them).

Deplore US' strategic stupidities all you want; but it's not the only actor with agency in the world.

Would anyone have been better off with Assad fighting a version of the 2010's civil war with nuclear weapons in his arsenal? Or Hussein, that sectarian war? Those are two men who gassed thousands of innocents with nerve agents; they wouldn't surely wouldn't hesitate long about dropping nukes.

(Can you deter a civil war with nuclear weapons?)

We could also ask who would have inherited a hypothetical Qaddafi nuke, after his fall: which Libya? There were at least three Libyas one point. ISIL governed one!

(One semantic nitpick: I don't think it's fair to say those dictators "gave up" their WMD's. With all three, their WMD programs were forcibly taken from them. In Iraq, 1981, the bombing of the Osirak reactor; and again in the 1991 Gulf War the bombing of Tuwaitha (which permanently ended Iraq's uranium enrichment). Qaddafi turned over all his nuclear materials to the USA, after being directly threatened, in the months following US' 2003 invasion of Iraq. And Assad lost his North Korean-built plutonium reactor in 2007, to an airstrike. Did anyone of these dictators have agency in those "give up WMD" choices? I think not).

For Libya and Syria, sure, but what are you talking about for Iraq? Saddam was unambiguously ousted from an internally secure position of power by a foreign invasion that followed in the wake of over a decade of heavy sanctions and no-fly zone imposure. By many accounts, Saddam had a strong base of support within his population and his rule was stable (backed by a blend of patronage and severe terror obviously) right up until the day he was ousted by vastly superior military might from outside.

While it's extremely hard to know what would have happened to his regime had he still been in power by the time of the Arab Spring and the events that caused the ouster of Gaddafi and eventually Assad, Saddam would surely have been able to stay in power at least up to then. I certainly don't imagine him having more difficulty handling an internal strife of the kind that ruined Assad's dictatorship. Except for his catastrophic miscalculation of making a long-term enemy of the US during the first, utterly pointless Gulf War, he at least showed himself to be the far more experienced and careful dictator during his rule.

That sounds insane. I don't think world would be more peaceful if every country under every government had WMDs. We'd be in the middle of nuclear winter now if that was the case. You could draw analogies to everyone owning a gun. We know it just ends up with many more dead and nothing being more peaceful.

> Since you name NK that's a clear example of a country having nuclear deterrent actually saving the region from a conflict.

He's wrong. What protects North Korea is that it's poor, has no natural resources and devastated human capital and neither attacks anyone with terrorist attacks nor credibly prophesies their intent to kill any nation or ethnicity.

If they did that, they'd be steamrolled already. WMDs or not.

By your logic, I am a little surprised Iran is still even a state then.

So, I have an honest (non rhetorical) question: Was NK saved more by having their own nukes, or by sharing a land border with China who has nukes and doesn't want the US getting involved in the area?

Nuclear weapons can target, the US based on the region, sure. But NK does not need nukes to reduce the south Korean capital to rubble.

No you don't, unless you're a dictatorship (including all the examples you gave).

The point is that you don‘t get attacked by anyone else unless you‘re a dictatorship.

I think the point of this bombing is to change the calculus you just mentioned. Now there’s an actual reason to not try for nukes, you may get bombed.

NK’s conventional weapons (and SK’s pointed right back at them) saved them from conflict, that’s how they got to nukes without us doing something like this. They already had mutually assured destruction from conventional weapons and proximity to an ally.

Iran’s problem is we don’t care much about anyone around them except Israel, and they already would destroy Israel if they could, so they had nobody’s head at which to aim their bullet.

NK’s government is an evil one but the Kims really like being alive and that keeps them somewhat rational. They are quite obviously not religious since they claim to be God (and surely are aware they are not), so they don’t believe in benefits to martyrdom.

Islamism is a death cult (and I mean that literally) so their actions aren’t rational as we would define the word. We can’t rely on their self-preservation instinct the way we can with the Kims.

Germany in that case will then briefly technically have nukes, but no ability to knowledge of how to launch or control them. Had Ukraine tried to hold onto those nukes and/or figure out how to launch them they would likely have been invaded by just about every country in the world, including the US, so they gave them up for a few bucks and some kind words.

And I strongly disagree about Iran. Pakistan is also an Islamic country (with its proper name being the Islamic Republic of Pakistan) and a nuclear power, and they haven't just decided to go nuke India who they have abysmal relations with. Religion does provide a different level of comfort with death (and Iran has a longgggggg history of enduring pain to expel invaders on top), but it does not just turn people into death cult members.

There's some irony in that if Iran had nuclear weapons their relations with Israel would likely have been much better. Because Israel wouldn't have been constantly attacking, assassinating, and otherwise doing everything they could to undermine the country. It's similar to how if North Korea didn't have nukes then South Korea, largely as a proxy of the US, would likely have been actively attacking them.

South Korea was never going to attack North Korea because, as I mentioned, they had plenty of conventional weapons they could easily deliver to South Korea. They had mutually assured destruction before they even tried to get nukes, that's why they succeeded. Iran does not have that yet, and must be stopped before they do.

I do now know whether this was the right way to do it by any means, and I think it's a shame that the Obama-era deal was abandoned. I think we could possibly have gotten here through peaceful measures. But we did need to get to here.

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pakistan_and_state-sponsored_t...

I don’t think there’s any evidence at all that fighting terrorism creates more terrorists than it kills, that’s just a thing people say and reality seems to show the opposite. We haven’t had waves of terror since gutting Al Queda, ISIS, etc. There’s neither research nor data to support it, people just like the way it sounds so they repeat it.

And on top of this terror groups are now growing powerful enough to fully control their own countries. The Taliban now has rock solid control of Afghanistan (before the war on terror they had majority control, but were struggling against a powerful insurgency), Abu Mohammad al-Julani controls Syria and US propaganda is framing him as a moderate or reformer, but he's not. He had a $10 million bounty on his head as one of the most dangerous terrorists in the world, even as we started running propaganda for him, exactly as we did for [de facto] Al Qaeda(from which he came) before they came back to bite us later, exactly as he will. Then there's the Houthis who went from a political movement to an insurgency to now having near complete control of Yemen in spite of ongoing conflicts with Saudi Arabia and the US.

[1] - https://ourworldindata.org/terrorism

How has the situation been better in the twenty years NK has had nuclear weapons than the fifty years after the Korean war and before NK got nukes?

https://nationalinterest.org/blog/reboot/north-koreas-artill...

Iran’s deterrent was/is through its proxies (Hamas, Hezbollah, Houthis) along with its sizable missile inventory, anti-air capabilities and strategic threats to oil and gas exports.

Israel’s investment in missile defense and the outcome of the Oct 7th attacks severely weakened Iran’s deterrence to a conventional attack.

I think the lesson should be that any nation that has enough conventional leverage to deter an attack could choose to build nuclear weapons. Nuclear weapons may complement, but can’t displace other capabilities.

The US has nuclear weapons but that didn’t deter Iran from launching direct attacks on US troops in the Middle East or sponsoring insurgents in Iraq. Nuclear weapons are also essential worthless against non nation-state actors such as Al-Qaeda.

If South Korea’s coalition could establish air superiority over the DMZ and artillery range in the first moves, I think it takes you from “Seoul destroyed” to a “pretty average modern conflict.”

Hot take for sure, but war has changed.

That's ahistorical in the case of Syria and Iraq. Israel destroyed the nascent nuclear weapons programmes of Syria and Iraq, just as it has done to Iran's. Syria and Iraq did not give up those programmes willingly.