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Comment by rambojohnson | Hacker News Reader

religious rhetoric is for the fools they've indoctrinated to their cause. it does not drive policy. I was being sardonic with "security doctrine".

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Israel today is run by a group of religious fundamentalists who do believe it is their "promised" land. And then we have an American ambassador publicly supporting this because he thinks that as a Christian he needs to support Israel's "Biblical rights" over the all of middle-east!

"a group of religious fundamentalists" led by... Netanyahu, who is completely secular if not an atheist. How does this narrative make sense?

(Of course some Israel politicians are religious; that's true of any country.)

You don't judge a person by what they say, but what they ultimately do - Netanyahu is a right-wing religious fundamentalist as is evident by the kind of right-wing identity politics he practice, his support for the assassination of Israeli (and Palestinian) leaders who didn't support his political ideology and sought peace (Israel PM Netanyahu denies incitement before murder of Rabin - https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israel-pm-netanyahu-denie... , Will Israel ever have another leader who truly wants peace? - https://forward.com/opinion/780946/yitzhak-rabin-assassinati... ), his attempts to usurp democracy in Israel and become a dictator (If Benjamin Netanyahu and his coalition have their way, my country could deteriorate into a dictatorship. - https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/03/israel-ben... ), his calls for the genocide of the Palestinians in Gaza, and the military sanction for the actual ongoing genocide in Gaza (and now in West Bank). The Likud party he leads emerged from a terrorist organisation that conducted Hamas like massacres of the Palestinains. ( The Terrorist Forefathers of Israel: The Irgun and Lehi - https://dissidentvoice.org/2023/03/the-terrorist-forefathers... ).

If it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and does what a duck does, it is a duck.

Netanyahu is not religious. He is, as the parent says, secular. If my cat quacked he's still not a duck.

There is "religion" in the broader sense which can be any set of beliefs but Netanyahu is as secular and logical as can be. He may be overly logical in the sense of advancing his personal agenda (avoiding standing trial) over the interests of his country but he's still very different than the religious crazies in Tehran where logic plays no role and g-d is everything.

I agree that one must be quite illogical and committed to some grander creed to issue a prohibition on nuclear weapons while Israel and USA are doing everything in their very much nuclear power to destroy you.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ali_Khamenei%27s_fatwa_against...

It's definitely illogical to enrich materials to nuclear grade and invest immense amounts in bunkers with centrifuges while saying you don't mean to have nuclear weapons.

No, those are both rational actions in this case. Iran getting nukes is less dangerous than only Israels current nukes. If both Iran and Israel had nukes, the region might have a chance at peace.

If Iran had nukes it would nuke Israel without any consideration for Israel's nuclear retaliation because in their thinking becoming a martyr in the course of killing the infidels is a good outcome.

The region will have chance at peace once the regime of Iran is removed.

The Iranian regime would absolutely use nukes as soon as they have two or more weapons ready. Just as they have launched countless attacks against civilian areas in many of their neighbor states in the past 2 weeks, including several nations that have prohibited any use of US military installations or their in their country or their airspace as part of this campaign.

If Iran's regime had nukes, I guarantee you'll see UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and several others go all in on their own nuclear programs immediately. They'd be fools not to.

Israel's nukes are troubling, but the weird "nuclear ambiguity" doctrine has already stood for so long and managed to avoid nuclear flare-ups so far. I'd still like them to not have nukes, but they won't be launching any nuclear first strikes for sure - since we've seen them not do that even while fighting many major wars and suffering losses without taking that step...

I do this too. I think it is basically simulation out of fear. (modeling because of uncomfortableness with thinking with System 1 fast emotional / System 2 slow rational)

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