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Comment by benja123 | Hacker News Reader

I am going to have to disagree. Iran recently attacked an Israeli ship, but more importantly it continues to arm terrorist groups (note I am Israeli, so I am probably not objective here, but yes I believe Hamas and Hezbollah are terrorist groups. Some of you may think differently on that. We can agree to disagree) that are against Israel’s existence. Those groups are constantly either attacking or trying to attack Israel.

Now you can argue Israel is also attacking those groups and you wouldn’t be wrong. It’s almost impossible to figure out who started each round. We only ever hear a very small part of the story.

It is a circle of violence that will hopefully one day end.

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> Iran recently attacked an Israeli ship

I think you already tried to say it, but remember Iran attacked an Israeli ship after 12 attacks to Iranians ships in 2020 by Israel. And 4 other Iranian ships were attacked in 2021 which two of them happened after Iran tried to retaliate by attacking an Israeli ship.

Israel clearly believes that the best defense is a good offense, but that strategy makes it harder to have any dialogue or peace.

Let's also remember Iran attacked Saudi Arabia directly not too long ago.

They are hardly the victim.

This is a non-sequitur. Irani-Saudi relations have nothing to do with Irani-Israeli relations.

> it continues to arm terrorist groups

That's all the US does, day and night. And they even say this publicly (although always implying that it is a good thing).

Iran and Israel used to be friend, but Israel nationalize Irans asset on Israel and didn't pay back oil they took from Iran, Iran got mad that Israel stole their things and now they are sworn enemies.

Iran and Israel stopped being friends after the Islamic revolution when Iran’s government declared Israel is a sworn enemy.

Hopefully one day that will change and we can be friends again as no one gains from the conflict.

A democratic Iran will always be the enemy of Israel.

Israel is a nuclear-armed ethnostate engaging in ethnic cleansing that protects these transgressions by operating as the FOB of the hegemonic world power that doesn't blink an eye at killing a million citizens in the region.

So long as Israel requires US support to safeguard their otherwise untenable position (and to force Arab dictatorships to act favorably towards Israel), Iran and Israel will be opposed.

Iran and Israel were allied before the revolution because the undemocratic government (not that the current one is anymore democratic otherwise) that was willing to act against its interests on the matter so long as the dominant foreign powers required it.

It's categorically false that no one gains from the conflict. Israel gains tremendously from the conflict as the antagonism between Iran and Israel and between Iran and the USA is what justifies its ability to get away with so much.

> A democratic Iran will always be the enemy of Israel.

Not really. They have nothing to quarrel about.

But there is nothing democratic about today's Iran. Theocratic fascists on the other hand need an enemy to distract from complete failure of internal politics and collapsing economy due to spending all their resources on war and funding criminals and terrorists abroad.

>But there is nothing democratic about today's Iran. Theocratic fascists on the other hand need an enemy to distract from complete failure of internal politics and collapsing economy due to spending all their resources on war and funding criminals and terrorists abroad.

I explicitly said they weren't. You're preaching for the choir.

>Not really. They have nothing to quarrel about.

Democratic states still have geopolitical interests. The interests of Israel are vehemently opposed to those of Iran. Thus, Iran and Israel will be in conflict. In fact, foreign policy-wise, democratic states are barely different from dictatorships.

Democratic Iran won't have interest in spreading war and chaos all around unlike what IRG (that basically runs Iran today) is doing now. So what kind of interests will they have conflicting then?

Countries pursue war to advance their interests. Iran funds proxies and political parties abroad to be able to maintain sufficient influence on its neighbours to prevent the advancement of US interests and to prevent them from attacking Iran, as well as to destabilize some gulf states.

Democracies are just as warmongering as any other. The US and most European countries didn't see any issue in bombing Syria and Libya back to slavery, so why do you think democratic Iran will be any better?

Simple reason - constant war mongering isn't something politicians will be supported for because the price for that is going on the people. That is, if politicians have to answer to anyone (thus democracy).

Dictatorships on the other hand don't care about squeezing their own populations to the bone for their war mongering. Well, until the point there is an uprising of course and they are burned down by the angry mob.

I see you have called Israel an 'ethnostate' several times on here. Have you ever visited Israel? I see jewish, druze, christian/muslim arabs,bedouin, russian/orthodox, eritrean, somali, etc etc every day. I think you would have a much different opinion if you visited. I am not jewish and I have full citizenship and rights.

I call every country which, on their constitution, proclaims themselves to belong to a specific ethnic group to be an ethnostate.

I live in Canada. If the constitution of this country specifically said it wasn't for me I would not accept that. If you disagree, that is your right.

are the Islamic Republic of Iran or the Islamic republic of pakistan ethnostates?

also what are their gay pride parades like, and whats their policy on censorship, capital punishment,etc?

The first are theocracies, but both Iran and Pakistan are officially multiethnic states. Not that theocracies are much better than ethnostate.

As for the other, those are orthogonal to the issues.

You are literally just doing whataboutism, but even worse because you're not whatabouting at the right people.

This makes no sense. My roommate is an christian arab, he has the exact same rights as I do, only he didn't have to do national service or military. The Russians that run the grocery store are orthodox christians, they also have rights, bedouins, druze, the eritrian coptic christians, ethiopian jews, jews from literally every corner of the world and of every race, who knows what some of the georgian guys religion is who make pastries down the street. There are so many ethnicities in Israel, and so many religions. I can't blame you because you have never been to Israel and have no idea the type of people that live here, you just have big opinions from the obvious propaganda you have been spoonfed, otherwise you would never say something like "Israel is an ethnostate" .

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