Comment by gwerbin
1 day ago
I genuinely wasn't sure what GP meant.
Maybe I have a wrong read on the situation between Iran and Israel. But my impression is that Israel is more concerned with Iran as a general threat, moreso than they are concerned that Iran will intervene on behalf of Palestinians, current Palestinian territory, or Hamas.
If Iran didn't get involved directly after ~2 years of open warfare and inarguably genocide-shaped atrocities carried out on civilians, what are they waiting for? Meanwhile Netanyahu has been talking about the danger of Iran developing nuclear weapons for decades now.
Keep in mind I was responding to a post about an assertion that there are so many military startups in Israel because so many Israelis, in their IDF service, have hands-on experience fighting against and oppressing Palestinians. I responded to a post that seemed reductive and misleading in support of that perspective.
> my impression is that Israel is more concerned with Iran as a general threat
Iran has never attacked Israel unless attacked first. As for their 'proxies' they only really exist because Israel has invaded Lebanon long before Hezbollah existed and its creation was spearheaded primarily by Lebanon's local population as a response to the invasion, with Iranian support.
Iran supports these local 'proxies' because it sees itself as a leader of the Shia and more broadly as a leader of the Muslim world and the Palestinian cause as being the responsibility of every Muslim nation (incl theirs) to get involved with.
Israel is indeed concerned with Iran as a threat, but only because they see the other governments in the region as willing to overlook the Palestinian cause, in exchange for economic links with Israel.
In that sense Iran is very much connected to the Palestinians, this assertion that Iran is just super irrational and wants to see Israel go down because they want to laugh watching it or something is nothing more than cheap Israeli propaganda.
Of course Iran is not just looking for the Palestinians out of altruism, they want a leadership position in the Muslim world and this is their way of gaining legitimacy, but the reason why Israel sees them as a threat is very much because of Iran's interest in the Palestinians.
> Iran has never attacked Israel unless attacked first
I mean, come on dude. You explaining away the actions of Iran's proxies as not the actions of Iran is just ahistorical nonsense at best. They funded them, trained them, and directed their actions.
> Israel is indeed concerned with Iran as a threat, but only because they see the other governments in the region as willing to overlook the Palestinian cause, in exchange for economic links with Israel
The complete lock down of the border between Egypt and the Gaza strip is because Egypt is beholden to Israel? Is that what you're saying here?
> the reason why Israel sees them as a threat is very much because of Iran's interest in the Palestinians
And by "interest" you're referring to backing the most violent terrorist groups in the region, who have the blood of thousands of Israeli citizens on their hands.
> Iran has never attacked Israel unless attacked first
Iran was involved in attacks against Israel and Israeli towns in the 1980s and 1990s by their mercenaries in Hezbollah and direct IRGC presence in Lebanon. This happened even when Israel supported Iran during the Iraq-Iran war, so this is strictly not true
Other incidents were the Iranian bombings of the Israeli embassy in Argentine or the Jewish center there, and attempts on the London and Bangkok embassies
Furthermore financing of Hamas during the 1990s suicide campaign with the direct goal of derailing the peace process.
This is part of a long line of Iranian aggressive actions that have led them to being isolated and in a string of wars that greatly destroyed their already diminished economic power
> in the 1980s and 1990s
Except Israel invaded Lebanon before that. It also engaged in assassinations, espionage, terror and sabotage before that. In fact Israelis engaged in those even before the state of Israel was officially pronounced.
I'm not saying the Iranians or Lebanese etc. never play dirty, but this portrayal of them as just irrational and aggressive for no reason whatsoever against their peace loving Israeli neighbors is just dishonest.
For one, neither the Iranians, nor the Lebanese are occupying foreign territory. The same cannot be said for the Israelis.
Israelis will say they invaded Lebanon in the 70s/80s because of the PLO, (no Hezbollah yet) however the PLO was itself a consequence of Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory.
In conclusion; there's a fairly simple way to disarm the Iranians and strip them and their proxies of any perceived legitimacy they may hold with anyone; stop occupying Palestine.
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