It's an easily accessible source with biases that are relatively well understood. That doesn't mean it's where I formed my views but it has conveniently accessible information.
If I gave something you know to be inaccurate or misleading you can supply your own source rather than just writing the whole thing off.
It's ironic that you're criticizing the quality of my sources since I don't even recall you posting any.
You're conveniently ignoring that Israel completely pulled out of Gaza, leaving all infrastructure for the residents to use including greenhouses and everything, and all it got was indiscriminate rocket and mortar fire by a government whose very charter calls for total genocide.
They gave back a tiny portion they didn't want in order to cement control over the West Bank and prevent the creation of a Palestinian state, at least according to Ariel Sharon
Just like you're also ignoring that the partition of the British Mandate gave the overwhelming majority of the land to the Arabs and called it "Jordan".
Yet despite this the proposed partition still managed to make the regions given to the Jews 45% Arab.
The only thing ignoring reality is the claim that there exists such a thing as a "palestinian" in the first place. Even members of the PLO executive board freely and publicly admitted that "palestinians" were a made up ethnicity designed for political gain.
Who cares what ethnicity they are? These are actual individuals who are having their homes taken away.
The region was controlled for centuries by various powers, with arab historians such as Ibn Khaldun and Muqaddasi documenting not only the lack of any notable muslim population but the existence of a substantial permanent jewish population, right up until the British Mandate ended.
And do you know what happened then? Despite the Grand Mufti's political and military alliance with the Third Reich the Arabs were still invited to help draw up the partition plan, and they were still given the overwhelming majority of the partitioned land despite refusing because the continued existence of the Jewish race was utterly intolerable to them.... something they have continuously and explicitly stated up to the modern day where the call for total genocide continues to be so important that it was included in the very government charter of Hamas.
So unless you're going to poo poo all over Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, and basically every other nation in the region as well stop being a hypocrite and pretending you don't have double standards here.
Lets just ignore the question of whether they became anti-Semitic before or after Jewish immigrants literally decided to take over Palestine because either answer carries the implication that the Zionists shouldn't have tried to take over Palestine.
You're still ignoring the Settlements question!!! Clearly you can see why I think the Settlements are indefensible, because no one will ever defend them!
Even if it is true that all spree killers were motivated by some evil online community, does it actually matter? If allowing them to have that community actually prevents more attacks than it precipitates it is still a net win for society.
It that the case though? If the community is bad enough to get banned I don't think it's moderating people.
This same crap comes up with every article that claims some school shooter did it because the creep played GTA. Crime rates have actually been falling for decades despite the rise of graphically violent video games. Even if some people turn to violence because it works in their favorite murder simulator it would seem that even more people don't resort to violence despite enjoying the same games.
That's a very different topic.
Games are fundamentally escapist, GTA doesn't actually endorse violence, it just lets people enjoy some fantasies.
But communities shape people's views and what they perceive as typical or right. I don't see why making the community online would change this?
The one thing in common with virtually all these lone gunman type terrorists or spree killers is their involvement in extremist online communities. It's a positive feedback loop.
Sources? I know that the church shooter guy was interested in neo-nazis online, but what other ones are you talking about? I actually think that you're just making that up, though, so you don't have to respond.
Well Elliot Rodger is one but I was mostly thinking about lone wolf terrorists or people like Luka Magnotta (though he wasn't a spree killer). However it's hard to find good sources in part because it isn't really mentioned. When people do something crazy like go on a killing spree or post a murder video people assume they'll be part of some screwy online communities and papers don't want to get flack from readers for posting the name of a really disturbing site.
But at a more abstract level no one disputes the fact that people can fall in with a bad crowd in the physical world, why would you dispute that it's possible to fall in with a bad crowd on the Internet?
So... a virtual lynchmob went after Pao because they decided she must be an "SJW" because she once sued a former employer for sexual harassment.
I notice you omitted a vital fact in your rant - that she sued *and lost*. If she had sued and won, then at least it could be argued that she was actually the victim of discrimination. However to play the gender card, and subsequently be shown to be bullshitting, firmly puts her in the SJW camp.
Given the US justice system someone suing a company and losing is hardly firm evidence they were in the wrong.
They interpreted a closure of a subreddit that was harassing people in real life as being content based, and by Pao, because they assumed that was what a straw-SJW would do.
Again you've got it wrong. They assumed that she was responsible because she was the CEO. Nothing to do with gender, or politics.
True, but that doesn't necessarily mean she was calling the shots if the chairman of the board was pushing hard enough.
And it turns out that Pao was supporting them all along - that is, arguing against a board that did actively want to remove the more offensive subreddits, and not actually the person who pushed out the fired employee.
Please, please don't tell me you're now believe the bullshit that's coming out of that clusterfuck of an organisation. You're like the global warming denialists, cherry-picking the starting point for your data. "See, the latest line to come out of reddit HQ is that Pao was fighting for you all along! You're all idiots I tell you, IDIOTS!"
Give it a couple of days, we'll hear some other bullshit line by then.
It's not coming from the organization but from a former CEO who doesn't seem to have an active role any more (but presumably still gets the office gossip). I don't think it makes sense for Reddit to defend the scapegoat and shift blame to their Executive Chairman.
If it's about ethics then I don't see a problem with no supporting/rFatPeopleHate. It's not like they are being silenced, Reddit just declined to offer them a free platform for their content, following their own ethical code.
There is a difference between defending someone's right to say what they like, and actually setting up a soapbox for them. There are people I'd never help spread their message, but I wouldn't want the government to ban them from saying it either. Freedom of speech does not imply an obligation to facilitate other's speech, or listen to it.
Very well said. "Free Speech" means the GOVERNMENT can't make certain speech illegal, or ban books, or silence dissent (even though all those things do happen, even China enshrines free speech in their constitution). It DOES NOT mean I have to support you, or help you disseminate that speech.
(Still with me... you won't be in a moment)
It's the same reason a Jewish printer can turn away business from a pro-Palestinian group, and the same reason a Christian baker can^H^H^H should be able to refuse to make a gay wedding cake.
Right. Or a KKK member baker from making a black person's wedding cake. Or for a eugenics supporter to not serve a handicapped person. And the list goes on and on. There's no reason to protect any of those people from discrimination. It's not like there has been a history of any of these groups of people being oppressed, or anything like that... oh wait.
The Jewish printer, Christian baker, KKK baker, and eugenics supporter are all guilty of discriminating against a group. That's not allowed nor should it be.
But that doesn't mean the Jewish printer should have to print holocaust denial posters nor the KKK member print "kill all whites" posters, you're allowed to ban offensive speech.
The politically correct crowd will willingly ignore horrible behavior as long as the person is otherwise supportive of their cause. I point to William Jefferson Clinton (Bill) as my defacto example of someone, who had they been had an (R) after their name, would have been judged completely differently by the PC (read, liberal) crowd.
So I take the cries of the PC crowd to be largely hypocritical.
In what sense?
I assume you're referring to his affair, I'd say the reaction seems mild because a) affairs are tough for the family and a personal indictment but not really a public policy issue and are generally ignored, b) Clinton never presented himself as an example of a perfect family man so it wasn't very hypocritical, c) the reaction of the Republicans was completely over the top.
I don't deny that the PC crowd can be hypocritical but I don't think they're moreso than any other group.
until you defend someone else's right to say something you disagree with. As for the pictures, if they're real, then that's already illegal and I have no doubt a dozen TLAs are already watching.
Having an outlet in text for these kinds of things is far better than having none and then having these people act it out for real in their areas. It can also give people a head's up since some of these people post their manifesto before they act out.
Alternately providing a forum allows people to develop their views and nurture them in a community.
Maybe I'm a non-practising paedophile who has kept it in check because I know it's wrong. But then I find an online community which shares my attraction and suggests it's perfectly fine, and since I have all those people who seem to think I'm not doing anything wrong by looking at these pictures of young girls then going a step further and looking for child porn can't be that bad either...
Same thing with any kind of extremism, it's the communities around them that develops them into dangerous people. The one thing in common with virtually all these lone gunman type terrorists or spree killers is their involvement in extremist online communities. It's a positive feedback loop.
Life is full of unpleasant things. Making it illegal to talk about them does not make them go away; it just allows them to grow in the dark.
There's a difference between making it illegal to talk about and giving them a forum.
Reddit is a community, it has no obligation to cater to any specific topic.
Yet they shot first and took over parts of other nations.
If your view of that war is so shallow as to being about "who shot first", then you really have no business discussing the subject.
It is far more complex than that.
I don't think there's a clear A started it or B started it answer to '67.
Don't be obtuse, Israel didn't move their forces to the border first, they didn't make threats first, they didn't make demands.
The other nations shouldn't have moved their forces in such a threatening manor, then Israel wouldn't have been forced to defend herself.
When you walk up to someone swinging a bat in a threatening manor, don't be shocked when the other person punches you first, they can't afford to wait to be hit by the bat, they won't get a chance to fight back.
I'm not saying it was as simple as who shot first, I'm saying that it's more complex than a pure war of aggression by the Arab states.
And even if it were a war of aggression that doesn't justify Israeli land grabs.
You've also ignored the elephant in the room of ongoing Israeli settlements. It's like arguing whether Joe or Phil was responsible for starting the fight while ignoring that fact that Joe was robbing Phil's house.
If the Turkish Kurds tried to leave Turkey would try to force them to stay
Then that is a flaw of Turkey. It would be disrespecting the Kurds human rights of self-determination.
So it's a flaw of Turkey then. Either way the Kurds will end up paying for it if they try revolt against Turkey and end up in a bloody war surrounded by extremists. Bush thought that the Iraqis deserved democracy and self-determination, over a hundred thousand people died for that idealism and many of the remainder have less freedom than before.
It was a defensive war for them, they clearly didn't set out to take over other nations.
Yet they shot first and took over parts of other nations.
I don't think there's a clear A started it or B started it answer to '67.
And why shouldn't they?
[...]
Nonsense, pure and utter nonsense. If people want to leave as a group and vote, that is their right. Look at Scotland, if they want to leave Great Britain, that is their right, and amazingly, it appears that England would respect the choice.
Great Britain is a lot different than the Middle East. If the Turkish Kurds tried to leave Turkey would try to force them to stay, both sides would become more extreme and tensions across the region would increase. The Sunni insurgency devolving into ISIS is an example of that. There's a reason that one of the basic principals in the UN is borders don't change by force, African nations agree and work hard to keep those terrible colonial government lines in place. Land is valuable and when changing borders is a possibility people are willing to do a lot of fighting to win some.
Yes, that is the parent's point. How far back do you go to decide who the "rightful" owners are? 3000 years is just as arbitrary as 50 or 100.
I don't think that's a defensible position, I could take your wallet right now and claim 30 seconds is just as arbitrary as 50 years.
Clearly Jews had no rights to the land in 1900 (except for the small population who was already there).
Either way this is my position. I don't think you can go back to the original mandate at this point, too much time has passed and multiple generations have lived there, however you should have some kind of compensation or recognition for the people who were expelled.
As for the '67 border, I think that's recent enough that you can and should go back, especially since the settlements that resulted are undergoing continuous expansion (that's the penalty you get for continued aggression).
My solution for the Israel/Palestine situation, a unilateral withdraw to the '67 lines. If some occupation is necessary to stop attacks so be it, but I suspect without Israeli settlers to defend the IDF will find much less reason to find confrontations with Palestinians.
Deprived of aggravation of the Settlements and the IDF confrontations the Palestinians will quiet down in 10-15 years, they might not have friendly relations for a hundred years but an independent Palestinian nation will be better able to control their populace and should actually make Israel safer.
It is worth noting that in return for the removal of missiles from Cuba, the US promised to not attack or invade Cuba.
We kept that promise. If Iran were to commit to the total removal of offensive missiles and nuclear technology, a guarantee that the US would never attack them strikes me as fair. Of course part of that is they would have to stop supporting terrorists, which they don't want to stop doing.
Thus we come back to, "Iran can't be trusted".
Will Israel, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and any future Isis state make the same promise?
Either way Iran is already agreeing to not pursue a bomb and they're doing it without a "no attack" promise from the US, so by your example they're actually doing more than Cuba did.
Israel has been attacked 4 times by other nations during its brief existence. It is small and the nations around it are big.
The insistence isn't a shame thing, Iran would do well to stop supporting the terrorists who attack Israel on a daily basis. In short, Iran needs to grow up and join the world of civilized nations if they wish to be treated as such. South Africa gave up apartheid and joined the world of civil nations, Iran can too.
Who started the '67 war is ambiguous, Israel fired the first shot and it's plausible the Arab states were only bluffing.
As for the terrorist attacks keep in mind that Israel is actively annexing Palestinian territory, if you want to talk about joining the world of civil nations to stabilize the region I think you need to start there.
We took 500k troops into Kuwait in 1991, we probably needed a million or more the second time around, but of course our "planes and drones and tanks can do anything". Nonsense, you need boots on the ground. You don't need those troops to fight, we had plenty of that. What you need is a clear show of force that allows you to be everywhere you need to be so that anyone thinking you're weak doesn't even get the idea of trying anything stupid. It becomes obvious who is the new boss and you can secure the borders and maintain order.
The US army doesn't even have 500k active troops. And remember you need more than just the people in the field, for a long term mission particularly you need people at home resting and training. Especially with Afghanistan going on at the same time there simply weren't enough troops to do what you suggest.
You could hire a bunch more but there's quite a cost associated and the US only has ~60 million military fit males to begin with, how many do you want to have on the Iraq mission?
As for the issue of the minority oppressing the majority, that is true and there was going to be backlash for that. One consideration would be to split Iraq up into 3 nations, Kurds in the north, and some split in the south for the other two. Iraq is not a natural nation, much of the troubles in the middle east are really Europe's fault for how they carved it up before and after WWI. They drew lines on a map without consideration of anyone actually living there.
The problem with that is the moment you give the Iraqi Kurds their own nation the Kurds in Turkey and Iran start wondering why they shouldn't get the same. Instead of a Sunni revolt in Iraq you might get a Kurdish revolt in Turkey and Iran.
Exactly how do you think the Palestinians should have reacted when a bunch of European Jews who hadn't had a serious presence. ..
Except for a quoted mention of Jerusalem, my post had nothing to do with Palestinians. Why have you assumed that I'm not sympathetic to the plight of the Palestinians?
Because it doesn't just affect Palestinians. Arabs are going to empathize with the Palestinians and all Muslims are going to react poorly to the idea of European Jews establishing a state in the Muslim holy land.
Too many people were improperly displaced during Israel war for independence for there to be an easy peace.
It's unfair to let this go, though, without mentioning that Jews had been trying to *purchase* land in the Ottoman Palestine, but were specifically barred from doing so. Further, the Ottoman empire barred jews from settling there beginning in 1882, and land purchases were somewhat clandestine. Then, the Brits barred any land sales beginning in 1918. There weren't a shit-ton of options available to them.
I'm not in favour of immigration restrictions but they're hardly uncommon and they make some sense when a rich foreign population is actually trying to settle you to found a new nation.
As for Britain I don't know how hard they tried, but they were certainly in favour of a Jewish homeland in Palestine and both Jewish population and land ownership exploded during the mandate.
Jews did comparatively well in the Middle East until Israel showed up.
Bullshit. The Dreyfus affair had consequences to Jews in middle-eastern countries under French Influence. The Damascus Affair was wider-ranging and 50 years earlier. Here are the dates and general locations of other major incidents from Wikipedia:
Allow me to emphasize, comparatively.
The plight of Jews was bad everywhere but it was better in the Arab world than in Europe. Sure there was an escalation after 1840 but the real trigger was the colonization of Israel that really got going after WWI.
Further, the conditions that led to the exodus of sephari & mizrahi jews from arab countries began well before WW II (much less the establishment of Israel) with the rise of the Nazis and dissemination of Nazi propaganda broadly through the middle east:
While antisemitism has increased in the wake of the Arab-Israeli conflict, there were pogroms against Jews prior to the foundation of Israel, including Nazi-inspired pogroms in Algeria in the 1930s, and attacks on the Jews of Iraq and Libya in the 1940s. In 1941, 180 Jews were murdered and 700 were injured in the anti-Jewish riots known as the Farhud. Four hundred Jews were injured in violent demonstrations in Egypt in 1945 and Jewish property was vandalized and looted. In Libya, 130 Jews were killed and 266 injured. In December 1947, 13 Jews were killed in Damascus, including 8 children, and 26 were injured. In Aleppo, rioting resulted in dozens of Jewish casualties, damage to 150 Jewish homes, and the torching of 5 schools and 10 synagogues. In Yemen, 97 Jews were murdered and 120 injured.
There's a big difference between the foundation of Israel and the start of the Arab-Israeli conflict. In a real sense the conflict started in the late 1800s with the start of Zionism. Exactly how do you think the Palestinians should have reacted when a bunch of European Jews who hadn't had a serious presence in over a millenia announced a plan to found a Jewish State in their territory and holy land?
Arab Antisemitism predates Israel's independence by a few decades. One prominent example is the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem collaborating with the Nazis to wipe out the Jews.
Which is terrible but not surprising as Palestine was being colonized by Jews at the time.
Modern-day Palestinians are nothing more than Egyptians and Jordanians. There never was such a thing as an independent Arab country of Palestine.
I never said there was an independent Arab country, but don't you think it's a bit insulting to simply deny that a people even exist?
If Palestinians had legitimate grievances going back 100 years as you claim, there should be plenty of history books prior to 1948 or even 1967 to date effect. Can you produce any? As a counter-example, Google "1929 hebron massacre" and read about the local Arabs massacring the local Jews way before the creation of the modern-date state, before there was any "occupation" or "settlements".
This isn't a territorial conflict. It never was.
To claim it isn't a territorial conflict is flat out ridiculous. The Jewish population tripled in size in 20 years and there was an explicit plan to build a Jewish homeland in Palestine.
Exactly how do you expect that to work without there being a territorial conflict?
If you go back earlier than WW2, the Israelis homeland was Israel. That was their homeland all the way back in 1100 BC all the way up until the Romans took over sometime around 90 AD.
So because they held the land 1800 years before they get to take it again in the 20th century? Somehow I don't think that's a standard you'd be willing to apply to any other group and territory.
If you go back even further, the garden of Eden was somewhere around there, possibly Syria/Persia, near the four rivers Pishon, Gihon, the Tigris, and the Euphrates. So the Israelis do have a valid claim on that land, before the Palestinians.
It you believe in the garden of Eden then Adam and Eve are also the Palestinians' ancestors so their claim is just as valid as the Jews.
Like hell it would. The pallys and the rest will be hating on Jews a hundred years after the last Israeli is marched into the sea. And the middle-east will still be a violent hell hole.
The Arabs in Palestine fled at the urging of their brother Arabs in other countries that intended to invade and kill the Jews. The Arab leaders announced their intention to massacre the Jews and didn't want the Arabs living in Palestine to be in the way so they told them to leave, and many of them did.
Perhaps Arab leaders did make that announcement, but It's a lot more plausible to think they fled because there was an ethnic war and they were the wrong ethnicity to be living there.
I disagree, for the most part it sounds like Iran is serious and they're willing to offer a pretty good deal. Widespread inspections and a massive downsizing of their Nuclear program when they haven't actually been shown to do anything that violates the NPT.
It's pretty much guaranteed that Iran has some secret nuclear research facility that we don't know about. They've had several (check out the one in Qom, for example).
Alright, but what should that mean for a deal? Surely inspections would make finding such facilities easier and a deal would reduce the motivation to use them to build a bomb.
I disagree, for the most part it sounds like Iran is serious and they're willing to offer a pretty good deal.
You and I see the world very differently.:)
That's ok, there are many viewpoints in the world, we are each entitled to our own.
But in my opinion, if Iran were serious, they would understand their place in this deal, and it sounds like they don't.
They're like any rational actor trying to get the best deal possible (and trying to get something that's fair).
On the topic of missiles they actually have a very understandable point. The US has talked about attacking Iran, Israel has repeatedly threatened to do so without warning, Iraq has done so with the active assistance of the US, and they're the lone Persian Shia power among a lot of Arab Sunni powers. Meanwhile Iran has never launched a war. It makes a lot of sense for the Iranians to want to maintain a strong conventional force, including long range missiles, that they can use to deter attackers. At the same time it doesn't make sense that they should give those up in a deal centred on Nuclear weapons, especially since the idea behind the Nuclear deal is restrictions get lifted in exchange for cancelling the program and allowing inspections.
What happens if they ignore it and go after a bomb anyway? You don't seem to consider that as a possibility, or you think the inspections will catch it. Iran is not a small nation, they are much larger and better positioned to cheat on the deal without getting caught than Iraq could have ever dreamed of.
It's possible, though risky, it's a lot easier for them to get a bomb without inspections.
So you might ask, what would I, as an American, have to see to start believing Iran? Some humble pie would be a nice start. An apology for the hostages in 1979 would be another.
Has the US apologized for overthrowing Iran's democratically elected government leading to the 1979 revolution? Or for entering Iranian waters and shooting down Iran Air Flight 655? The American commander even got a big medal for the campaign (not for shooting down the flight specifically but there was no real reprimand).
Announcing Israel's right to exist and promising to never attack them would be another.
Has Israel promised not to attack Iran? And insisting on recognition of Israel is a shaming tactic, a symbolic foreign policy capitulation, that's just a poison pill for an agreement.
Frankly it is a shame that the invasion of Iraq was so poorly handled by people who didn't know what they were doing. The first gulf war was run beautifully, the second, not so much. But that is a failure of leadership, not of our military.
The difference between the gulf wars wasn't leadership (which was poor), it was objectives.
The purpose of the first gulf war was to destroy the Iraqi army and drive Iraq out of Kuwait. They did that, and the only reason it started was a diplomatic screwup since Hussein thought he had US permission to invade.
The second gulf war was just as effective in destroying the Iraqi army, the problem was they didn't just leave after but instead tried to impose democracy on a nation which had no democratic tradition and a minority had been brutally repressing the majority for decades. Sure the torture and firing the Iraqi army were stupid screwups but there were a thousand ways that occupation could have gone sideways the way it did.
But it takes two people (or nations) to make a deal, and it appears that Iran is not yet serious about this.
I disagree, for the most part it sounds like Iran is serious and they're willing to offer a pretty good deal. Widespread inspections and a massive downsizing of their Nuclear program when they haven't actually been shown to do anything that violates the NPT.
Nations like Iran cannot be allowed to have nuclear weapons.
Your next question might be, what gives the US the right to say that... Simple... We're in charge, they aren't. You might not think that is "right", but it is the truth.
If they want to be in charge, they can have the largest GDP, the world's reserve currency, and the world's most powerful military. Until then, we're in charge and they aren't.
It isn't very diplomatic to say that, but when you cut the crust off the bread, that is what you'll find in the middle.
To be honest that attitude is why people tend to not like Americans, and that has consequences. The emergence of Russia as a rogue nation came in large part from perceived hostility and domination from the US. The belief you could simply impose your will on Iraq has likely killed over 100,000 people and created threats such as ISIS.
When you announce that you're in charge because of "X" people don't just roll over and agree, they just change the rules so they can compete. You pursue that policy with Iran and they'll trade with Russia instead, maybe they'll buy a few bombs from them so they don't have to worry about an Israeli attack. They'll then increase support for groups hostile to Israel and cause a world wide recession by shutting down the Strait of Hormuz. Russia is happy because oil has skyrocketed but you and all your allies in the Middle East and Europe are starved for oil.
Your power has some very significant limits. A deal with Iran that stops their nuclear program and starts creating an friendly power strikes me as a very good idea.
And there is nothing "civil" about the state of Israel.
Then goes completely nuts. If you had nukes and people launching rockets at you 24/7 how long do you think you'd be able to stop from eliminating the problem ? See the Israelis are likely a hell of a lot more civil than you are.
Look at it from the Palestinian perspective.
WWI they're under Ottoman rule with a big Muslim majority and they rebel with the understanding that the allies will give them independence, instead after the war the allies put them under a British mandate and open the floodgates to Jewish immigration.
After WWII with the demographics significantly altered the UN suggests a partition that the Jews favour but the Palestians oppose, the partition is imposed anyways and the Palestinians start a war. They lose the war and lose even more land, and the Palestinians who lived in Israeli territories but fled the war aren't allowed to return and have their land confiscated. This only a half century after another population decided to immigrate with the express intent of founding a nation in their territory and they were given no option of refusing.
Another war in '67 and the Palestinians lose more land.
Then for the next half century Israel not only rules over Palestinian territory but they kick Palestinians off their land and then actively settle the seized land! This isn't just a few incidents, this is systematic, widespread, continuous land theft, it's so bad that as Israel considers pauses in Settlement activity to be significant negotiation concessions!
Any conversation about Israel/Palestine that ignores the reality of actively settling another people's land is completely missing the point.
Leave the sanctions in place, they are clearly working or Iran wouldn't be at the table talking.
But if they are at the table talking now why not make a deal? Maybe longer sanctions make a deal easier or maybe Rouhani is replaced by a hardliner and Obama by someone less palatable to the Muslim world. Instead of a deal both sides harden, Iran builds a bomb, and now you have a much more dangerous situation.
Perhaps increase them, isolate Iran to the point that it becomes quite hard to do business anywhere in the world. Make their oil worthless by intercepting it on the high seas, forbid them to ship it anywhere.
Invading and attacking them may not be required, they might cry uncle when the pain becomes great enough.
Or not, North Korea is the other way it goes I suppose.
Under what pretext? There's still the fact that you need international agreement to make stronger sanctions and that's very dubious. As for unilateral action that only works if the US starts making itself a pariah state which carries its own stack of consequences.
Slashdot Mirror
It's an easily accessible source with biases that are relatively well understood. That doesn't mean it's where I formed my views but it has conveniently accessible information.
If I gave something you know to be inaccurate or misleading you can supply your own source rather than just writing the whole thing off.
It's ironic that you're criticizing the quality of my sources since I don't even recall you posting any.
You're conveniently ignoring that Israel completely pulled out of Gaza, leaving all infrastructure for the residents to use including greenhouses and everything, and all it got was indiscriminate rocket and mortar fire by a government whose very charter calls for total genocide.
They gave back a tiny portion they didn't want in order to cement control over the West Bank and prevent the creation of a Palestinian state, at least according to Ariel Sharon
Just like you're also ignoring that the partition of the British Mandate gave the overwhelming majority of the land to the Arabs and called it "Jordan".
Yet despite this the proposed partition still managed to make the regions given to the Jews 45% Arab.
And that there's no such thing as "67 borders".
I disagree.
The only thing ignoring reality is the claim that there exists such a thing as a "palestinian" in the first place. Even members of the PLO executive board freely and publicly admitted that "palestinians" were a made up ethnicity designed for political gain.
Who cares what ethnicity they are? These are actual individuals who are having their homes taken away.
The region was controlled for centuries by various powers, with arab historians such as Ibn Khaldun and Muqaddasi documenting not only the lack of any notable muslim population but the existence of a substantial permanent jewish population, right up until the British Mandate ended.
So when was this that there was no notable Muslim population?
And do you know what happened then? Despite the Grand Mufti's political and military alliance with the Third Reich the Arabs were still invited to help draw up the partition plan, and they were still given the overwhelming majority of the partitioned land despite refusing because the continued existence of the Jewish race was utterly intolerable to them.... something they have continuously and explicitly stated up to the modern day where the call for total genocide continues to be so important that it was included in the very government charter of Hamas.
So unless you're going to poo poo all over Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, and basically every other nation in the region as well stop being a hypocrite and pretending you don't have double standards here.
Lets just ignore the question of whether they became anti-Semitic before or after Jewish immigrants literally decided to take over Palestine because either answer carries the implication that the Zionists shouldn't have tried to take over Palestine.
You're still ignoring the Settlements question!!! Clearly you can see why I think the Settlements are indefensible, because no one will ever defend them!
Even if it is true that all spree killers were motivated by some evil online community, does it actually matter? If allowing them to have that community actually prevents more attacks than it precipitates it is still a net win for society.
It that the case though? If the community is bad enough to get banned I don't think it's moderating people.
This same crap comes up with every article that claims some school shooter did it because the creep played GTA. Crime rates have actually been falling for decades despite the rise of graphically violent video games. Even if some people turn to violence because it works in their favorite murder simulator it would seem that even more people don't resort to violence despite enjoying the same games.
That's a very different topic.
Games are fundamentally escapist, GTA doesn't actually endorse violence, it just lets people enjoy some fantasies.
But communities shape people's views and what they perceive as typical or right. I don't see why making the community online would change this?
The one thing in common with virtually all these lone gunman type terrorists or spree killers is their involvement in extremist online communities. It's a positive feedback loop.
Sources? I know that the church shooter guy was interested in neo-nazis online, but what other ones are you talking about? I actually think that you're just making that up, though, so you don't have to respond.
Well Elliot Rodger is one but I was mostly thinking about lone wolf terrorists or people like Luka Magnotta (though he wasn't a spree killer). However it's hard to find good sources in part because it isn't really mentioned. When people do something crazy like go on a killing spree or post a murder video people assume they'll be part of some screwy online communities and papers don't want to get flack from readers for posting the name of a really disturbing site.
But at a more abstract level no one disputes the fact that people can fall in with a bad crowd in the physical world, why would you dispute that it's possible to fall in with a bad crowd on the Internet?
So... a virtual lynchmob went after Pao because they decided she must be an "SJW" because she once sued a former employer for sexual harassment.
I notice you omitted a vital fact in your rant - that she sued *and lost*. If she had sued and won, then at least it could be argued that she was actually the victim of discrimination. However to play the gender card, and subsequently be shown to be bullshitting, firmly puts her in the SJW camp.
Given the US justice system someone suing a company and losing is hardly firm evidence they were in the wrong.
They interpreted a closure of a subreddit that was harassing people in real life as being content based, and by Pao, because they assumed that was what a straw-SJW would do.
Again you've got it wrong. They assumed that she was responsible because she was the CEO. Nothing to do with gender, or politics.
True, but that doesn't necessarily mean she was calling the shots if the chairman of the board was pushing hard enough.
And it turns out that Pao was supporting them all along - that is, arguing against a board that did actively want to remove the more offensive subreddits, and not actually the person who pushed out the fired employee.
Please, please don't tell me you're now believe the bullshit that's coming out of that clusterfuck of an organisation. You're like the global warming denialists, cherry-picking the starting point for your data. "See, the latest line to come out of reddit HQ is that Pao was fighting for you all along! You're all idiots I tell you, IDIOTS!"
Give it a couple of days, we'll hear some other bullshit line by then.
It's not coming from the organization but from a former CEO who doesn't seem to have an active role any more (but presumably still gets the office gossip). I don't think it makes sense for Reddit to defend the scapegoat and shift blame to their Executive Chairman.
If it's about ethics then I don't see a problem with no supporting /rFatPeopleHate. It's not like they are being silenced, Reddit just declined to offer them a free platform for their content, following their own ethical code.
There is a difference between defending someone's right to say what they like, and actually setting up a soapbox for them. There are people I'd never help spread their message, but I wouldn't want the government to ban them from saying it either. Freedom of speech does not imply an obligation to facilitate other's speech, or listen to it.
Very well said. "Free Speech" means the GOVERNMENT can't make certain speech illegal, or ban books, or silence dissent (even though all those things do happen, even China enshrines free speech in their constitution). It DOES NOT mean I have to support you, or help you disseminate that speech.
(Still with me... you won't be in a moment)
It's the same reason a Jewish printer can turn away business from a pro-Palestinian group, and the same reason a Christian baker can^H^H^H should be able to refuse to make a gay wedding cake.
Right. Or a KKK member baker from making a black person's wedding cake. Or for a eugenics supporter to not serve a handicapped person. And the list goes on and on. There's no reason to protect any of those people from discrimination. It's not like there has been a history of any of these groups of people being oppressed, or anything like that... oh wait.
The Jewish printer, Christian baker, KKK baker, and eugenics supporter are all guilty of discriminating against a group. That's not allowed nor should it be.
But that doesn't mean the Jewish printer should have to print holocaust denial posters nor the KKK member print "kill all whites" posters, you're allowed to ban offensive speech.
The politically correct crowd will willingly ignore horrible behavior as long as the person is otherwise supportive of their cause. I point to William Jefferson Clinton (Bill) as my defacto example of someone, who had they been had an (R) after their name, would have been judged completely differently by the PC (read, liberal) crowd.
So I take the cries of the PC crowd to be largely hypocritical.
In what sense?
I assume you're referring to his affair, I'd say the reaction seems mild because a) affairs are tough for the family and a personal indictment but not really a public policy issue and are generally ignored, b) Clinton never presented himself as an example of a perfect family man so it wasn't very hypocritical, c) the reaction of the Republicans was completely over the top.
I don't deny that the PC crowd can be hypocritical but I don't think they're moreso than any other group.
until you defend someone else's right to say something you disagree with. As for the pictures, if they're real, then that's already illegal and I have no doubt a dozen TLAs are already watching.
Having an outlet in text for these kinds of things is far better than having none and then having these people act it out for real in their areas. It can also give people a head's up since some of these people post their manifesto before they act out.
Alternately providing a forum allows people to develop their views and nurture them in a community.
Maybe I'm a non-practising paedophile who has kept it in check because I know it's wrong. But then I find an online community which shares my attraction and suggests it's perfectly fine, and since I have all those people who seem to think I'm not doing anything wrong by looking at these pictures of young girls then going a step further and looking for child porn can't be that bad either...
Same thing with any kind of extremism, it's the communities around them that develops them into dangerous people. The one thing in common with virtually all these lone gunman type terrorists or spree killers is their involvement in extremist online communities. It's a positive feedback loop.
Life is full of unpleasant things. Making it illegal to talk about them does not make them go away; it just allows them to grow in the dark.
There's a difference between making it illegal to talk about and giving them a forum.
Reddit is a community, it has no obligation to cater to any specific topic.
Yet they shot first and took over parts of other nations.
If your view of that war is so shallow as to being about "who shot first", then you really have no business discussing the subject.
It is far more complex than that.
I don't think there's a clear A started it or B started it answer to '67.
Don't be obtuse, Israel didn't move their forces to the border first, they didn't make threats first, they didn't make demands.
The other nations shouldn't have moved their forces in such a threatening manor, then Israel wouldn't have been forced to defend herself.
When you walk up to someone swinging a bat in a threatening manor, don't be shocked when the other person punches you first, they can't afford to wait to be hit by the bat, they won't get a chance to fight back.
I'm not saying it was as simple as who shot first, I'm saying that it's more complex than a pure war of aggression by the Arab states.
And even if it were a war of aggression that doesn't justify Israeli land grabs.
You've also ignored the elephant in the room of ongoing Israeli settlements. It's like arguing whether Joe or Phil was responsible for starting the fight while ignoring that fact that Joe was robbing Phil's house.
If the Turkish Kurds tried to leave Turkey would try to force them to stay
Then that is a flaw of Turkey. It would be disrespecting the Kurds human rights of self-determination.
So it's a flaw of Turkey then. Either way the Kurds will end up paying for it if they try revolt against Turkey and end up in a bloody war surrounded by extremists. Bush thought that the Iraqis deserved democracy and self-determination, over a hundred thousand people died for that idealism and many of the remainder have less freedom than before.
It was a defensive war for them, they clearly didn't set out to take over other nations.
Yet they shot first and took over parts of other nations.
I don't think there's a clear A started it or B started it answer to '67.
And why shouldn't they?
[...]
Nonsense, pure and utter nonsense. If people want to leave as a group and vote, that is their right. Look at Scotland, if they want to leave Great Britain, that is their right, and amazingly, it appears that England would respect the choice.
Great Britain is a lot different than the Middle East. If the Turkish Kurds tried to leave Turkey would try to force them to stay, both sides would become more extreme and tensions across the region would increase. The Sunni insurgency devolving into ISIS is an example of that. There's a reason that one of the basic principals in the UN is borders don't change by force, African nations agree and work hard to keep those terrible colonial government lines in place. Land is valuable and when changing borders is a possibility people are willing to do a lot of fighting to win some.
Yes, that is the parent's point. How far back do you go to decide who the "rightful" owners are? 3000 years is just as arbitrary as 50 or 100.
I don't think that's a defensible position, I could take your wallet right now and claim 30 seconds is just as arbitrary as 50 years.
Clearly Jews had no rights to the land in 1900 (except for the small population who was already there).
Either way this is my position. I don't think you can go back to the original mandate at this point, too much time has passed and multiple generations have lived there, however you should have some kind of compensation or recognition for the people who were expelled.
As for the '67 border, I think that's recent enough that you can and should go back, especially since the settlements that resulted are undergoing continuous expansion (that's the penalty you get for continued aggression).
My solution for the Israel/Palestine situation, a unilateral withdraw to the '67 lines. If some occupation is necessary to stop attacks so be it, but I suspect without Israeli settlers to defend the IDF will find much less reason to find confrontations with Palestinians.
Deprived of aggravation of the Settlements and the IDF confrontations the Palestinians will quiet down in 10-15 years, they might not have friendly relations for a hundred years but an independent Palestinian nation will be better able to control their populace and should actually make Israel safer.
It is worth noting that in return for the removal of missiles from Cuba, the US promised to not attack or invade Cuba.
We kept that promise. If Iran were to commit to the total removal of offensive missiles and nuclear technology, a guarantee that the US would never attack them strikes me as fair. Of course part of that is they would have to stop supporting terrorists, which they don't want to stop doing.
Thus we come back to, "Iran can't be trusted".
Will Israel, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and any future Isis state make the same promise?
Either way Iran is already agreeing to not pursue a bomb and they're doing it without a "no attack" promise from the US, so by your example they're actually doing more than Cuba did.
Israel has been attacked 4 times by other nations during its brief existence. It is small and the nations around it are big.
The insistence isn't a shame thing, Iran would do well to stop supporting the terrorists who attack Israel on a daily basis. In short, Iran needs to grow up and join the world of civilized nations if they wish to be treated as such. South Africa gave up apartheid and joined the world of civil nations, Iran can too.
Who started the '67 war is ambiguous, Israel fired the first shot and it's plausible the Arab states were only bluffing.
As for the terrorist attacks keep in mind that Israel is actively annexing Palestinian territory, if you want to talk about joining the world of civil nations to stabilize the region I think you need to start there.
We took 500k troops into Kuwait in 1991, we probably needed a million or more the second time around, but of course our "planes and drones and tanks can do anything". Nonsense, you need boots on the ground. You don't need those troops to fight, we had plenty of that. What you need is a clear show of force that allows you to be everywhere you need to be so that anyone thinking you're weak doesn't even get the idea of trying anything stupid. It becomes obvious who is the new boss and you can secure the borders and maintain order.
The US army doesn't even have 500k active troops. And remember you need more than just the people in the field, for a long term mission particularly you need people at home resting and training. Especially with Afghanistan going on at the same time there simply weren't enough troops to do what you suggest.
You could hire a bunch more but there's quite a cost associated and the US only has ~60 million military fit males to begin with, how many do you want to have on the Iraq mission?
As for the issue of the minority oppressing the majority, that is true and there was going to be backlash for that. One consideration would be to split Iraq up into 3 nations, Kurds in the north, and some split in the south for the other two. Iraq is not a natural nation, much of the troubles in the middle east are really Europe's fault for how they carved it up before and after WWI. They drew lines on a map without consideration of anyone actually living there.
The problem with that is the moment you give the Iraqi Kurds their own nation the Kurds in Turkey and Iran start wondering why they shouldn't get the same. Instead of a Sunni revolt in Iraq you might get a Kurdish revolt in Turkey and Iran.
Exactly how do you think the Palestinians should have reacted when a bunch of European Jews who hadn't had a serious presence. . .
Except for a quoted mention of Jerusalem, my post had nothing to do with Palestinians. Why have you assumed that I'm not sympathetic to the plight of the Palestinians?
Because it doesn't just affect Palestinians. Arabs are going to empathize with the Palestinians and all Muslims are going to react poorly to the idea of European Jews establishing a state in the Muslim holy land.
Too many people were improperly displaced during Israel war for independence for there to be an easy peace.
It's unfair to let this go, though, without mentioning that Jews had been trying to *purchase* land in the Ottoman Palestine, but were specifically barred from doing so. Further, the Ottoman empire barred jews from settling there beginning in 1882, and land purchases were somewhat clandestine. Then, the Brits barred any land sales beginning in 1918. There weren't a shit-ton of options available to them.
I'm not in favour of immigration restrictions but they're hardly uncommon and they make some sense when a rich foreign population is actually trying to settle you to found a new nation.
As for Britain I don't know how hard they tried, but they were certainly in favour of a Jewish homeland in Palestine and both Jewish population and land ownership exploded during the mandate.
Jews did comparatively well in the Middle East until Israel showed up.
Bullshit. The Dreyfus affair had consequences to Jews in middle-eastern countries under French Influence. The Damascus Affair was wider-ranging and 50 years earlier. Here are the dates and general locations of other major incidents from Wikipedia:
Allow me to emphasize, comparatively.
The plight of Jews was bad everywhere but it was better in the Arab world than in Europe. Sure there was an escalation after 1840 but the real trigger was the colonization of Israel that really got going after WWI.
Further, the conditions that led to the exodus of sephari & mizrahi jews from arab countries began well before WW II (much less the establishment of Israel) with the rise of the Nazis and dissemination of Nazi propaganda broadly through the middle east:
While antisemitism has increased in the wake of the Arab-Israeli conflict, there were pogroms against Jews prior to the foundation of Israel, including Nazi-inspired pogroms in Algeria in the 1930s, and attacks on the Jews of Iraq and Libya in the 1940s. In 1941, 180 Jews were murdered and 700 were injured in the anti-Jewish riots known as the Farhud. Four hundred Jews were injured in violent demonstrations in Egypt in 1945 and Jewish property was vandalized and looted. In Libya, 130 Jews were killed and 266 injured. In December 1947, 13 Jews were killed in Damascus, including 8 children, and 26 were injured. In Aleppo, rioting resulted in dozens of Jewish casualties, damage to 150 Jewish homes, and the torching of 5 schools and 10 synagogues. In Yemen, 97 Jews were murdered and 120 injured.
There's a big difference between the foundation of Israel and the start of the Arab-Israeli conflict. In a real sense the conflict started in the late 1800s with the start of Zionism. Exactly how do you think the Palestinians should have reacted when a bunch of European Jews who hadn't had a serious presence in over a millenia announced a plan to found a Jewish State in their territory and holy land?
Arab Antisemitism predates Israel's independence by a few decades. One prominent example is the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem collaborating with the Nazis to wipe out the Jews.
Which is terrible but not surprising as Palestine was being colonized by Jews at the time.
Modern-day Palestinians are nothing more than Egyptians and Jordanians. There never was such a thing as an independent Arab country of Palestine.
I never said there was an independent Arab country, but don't you think it's a bit insulting to simply deny that a people even exist?
If Palestinians had legitimate grievances going back 100 years as you claim, there should be plenty of history books prior to 1948 or even 1967 to date effect. Can you produce any? As a counter-example, Google "1929 hebron massacre" and read about the local Arabs massacring the local Jews way before the creation of the modern-date state, before there was any "occupation" or "settlements".
This isn't a territorial conflict. It never was.
To claim it isn't a territorial conflict is flat out ridiculous. The Jewish population tripled in size in 20 years and there was an explicit plan to build a Jewish homeland in Palestine.
Exactly how do you expect that to work without there being a territorial conflict?
If you go back earlier than WW2, the Israelis homeland was Israel. That was their homeland all the way back in 1100 BC all the way up until the Romans took over sometime around 90 AD.
So because they held the land 1800 years before they get to take it again in the 20th century? Somehow I don't think that's a standard you'd be willing to apply to any other group and territory.
If you go back even further, the garden of Eden was somewhere around there, possibly Syria/Persia, near the four rivers Pishon, Gihon, the Tigris, and the Euphrates. So the Israelis do have a valid claim on that land, before the Palestinians.
It you believe in the garden of Eden then Adam and Eve are also the Palestinians' ancestors so their claim is just as valid as the Jews.
t would go a long way
Like hell it would. The pallys and the rest will be hating on Jews a hundred years after the last Israeli is marched into the sea. And the middle-east will still be a violent hell hole.
Peace is overrated.
Jews did comparatively well in the Middle East until Israel showed up. The Palestinians have some major legitimate grievances over how they've been continuously forced off their land over the last 100 years and it's pretty obvious those grievances contribute to the anti-Semitism in the region.
It will take a long time for tensions to cool but you can't assume an implacable irrational hatred while overlooking a clear explanation.
The Arabs in Palestine fled at the urging of their brother Arabs in other countries that intended to invade and kill the Jews. The Arab leaders announced their intention to massacre the Jews and didn't want the Arabs living in Palestine to be in the way so they told them to leave, and many of them did.
Perhaps Arab leaders did make that announcement, but It's a lot more plausible to think they fled because there was an ethnic war and they were the wrong ethnicity to be living there.
That expulsions and ethnic cleansing was occurring seems pretty incontrovertible.
You're also overlooking the current settlement driven displacements which are undoubtedly forced.
I disagree, for the most part it sounds like Iran is serious and they're willing to offer a pretty good deal. Widespread inspections and a massive downsizing of their Nuclear program when they haven't actually been shown to do anything that violates the NPT.
It's pretty much guaranteed that Iran has some secret nuclear research facility that we don't know about. They've had several (check out the one in Qom, for example).
Alright, but what should that mean for a deal? Surely inspections would make finding such facilities easier and a deal would reduce the motivation to use them to build a bomb.
I disagree, for the most part it sounds like Iran is serious and they're willing to offer a pretty good deal.
You and I see the world very differently. :)
That's ok, there are many viewpoints in the world, we are each entitled to our own.
But in my opinion, if Iran were serious, they would understand their place in this deal, and it sounds like they don't.
They're like any rational actor trying to get the best deal possible (and trying to get something that's fair).
On the topic of missiles they actually have a very understandable point. The US has talked about attacking Iran, Israel has repeatedly threatened to do so without warning, Iraq has done so with the active assistance of the US, and they're the lone Persian Shia power among a lot of Arab Sunni powers. Meanwhile Iran has never launched a war. It makes a lot of sense for the Iranians to want to maintain a strong conventional force, including long range missiles, that they can use to deter attackers. At the same time it doesn't make sense that they should give those up in a deal centred on Nuclear weapons, especially since the idea behind the Nuclear deal is restrictions get lifted in exchange for cancelling the program and allowing inspections.
What happens if they ignore it and go after a bomb anyway? You don't seem to consider that as a possibility, or you think the inspections will catch it. Iran is not a small nation, they are much larger and better positioned to cheat on the deal without getting caught than Iraq could have ever dreamed of.
It's possible, though risky, it's a lot easier for them to get a bomb without inspections.
So you might ask, what would I, as an American, have to see to start believing Iran? Some humble pie would be a nice start. An apology for the hostages in 1979 would be another.
Has the US apologized for overthrowing Iran's democratically elected government leading to the 1979 revolution? Or for entering Iranian waters and shooting down Iran Air Flight 655? The American commander even got a big medal for the campaign (not for shooting down the flight specifically but there was no real reprimand).
Announcing Israel's right to exist and promising to never attack them would be another.
Has Israel promised not to attack Iran? And insisting on recognition of Israel is a shaming tactic, a symbolic foreign policy capitulation, that's just a poison pill for an agreement.
Frankly it is a shame that the invasion of Iraq was so poorly handled by people who didn't know what they were doing. The first gulf war was run beautifully, the second, not so much. But that is a failure of leadership, not of our military.
The difference between the gulf wars wasn't leadership (which was poor), it was objectives.
The purpose of the first gulf war was to destroy the Iraqi army and drive Iraq out of Kuwait. They did that, and the only reason it started was a diplomatic screwup since Hussein thought he had US permission to invade.
The second gulf war was just as effective in destroying the Iraqi army, the problem was they didn't just leave after but instead tried to impose democracy on a nation which had no democratic tradition and a minority had been brutally repressing the majority for decades. Sure the torture and firing the Iraqi army were stupid screwups but there were a thousand ways that occupation could have gone sideways the way it did.
There's a big difference between lacking self-determination and being forcibly displaced by another group.
Sure, by all means, make a deal if you can.
But it takes two people (or nations) to make a deal, and it appears that Iran is not yet serious about this.
I disagree, for the most part it sounds like Iran is serious and they're willing to offer a pretty good deal. Widespread inspections and a massive downsizing of their Nuclear program when they haven't actually been shown to do anything that violates the NPT.
Nations like Iran cannot be allowed to have nuclear weapons.
Your next question might be, what gives the US the right to say that... Simple... We're in charge, they aren't. You might not think that is "right", but it is the truth.
If they want to be in charge, they can have the largest GDP, the world's reserve currency, and the world's most powerful military. Until then, we're in charge and they aren't.
It isn't very diplomatic to say that, but when you cut the crust off the bread, that is what you'll find in the middle.
To be honest that attitude is why people tend to not like Americans, and that has consequences. The emergence of Russia as a rogue nation came in large part from perceived hostility and domination from the US. The belief you could simply impose your will on Iraq has likely killed over 100,000 people and created threats such as ISIS.
When you announce that you're in charge because of "X" people don't just roll over and agree, they just change the rules so they can compete. You pursue that policy with Iran and they'll trade with Russia instead, maybe they'll buy a few bombs from them so they don't have to worry about an Israeli attack. They'll then increase support for groups hostile to Israel and cause a world wide recession by shutting down the Strait of Hormuz. Russia is happy because oil has skyrocketed but you and all your allies in the Middle East and Europe are starved for oil.
Your power has some very significant limits. A deal with Iran that stops their nuclear program and starts creating an friendly power strikes me as a very good idea.
And there is nothing "civil" about the state of Israel.
Then goes completely nuts. If you had nukes and people launching rockets at you 24/7 how long do you think you'd be able to stop from eliminating the problem ?
See the Israelis are likely a hell of a lot more civil than you are.
Look at it from the Palestinian perspective.
WWI they're under Ottoman rule with a big Muslim majority and they rebel with the understanding that the allies will give them independence, instead after the war the allies put them under a British mandate and open the floodgates to Jewish immigration.
After WWII with the demographics significantly altered the UN suggests a partition that the Jews favour but the Palestians oppose, the partition is imposed anyways and the Palestinians start a war. They lose the war and lose even more land, and the Palestinians who lived in Israeli territories but fled the war aren't allowed to return and have their land confiscated. This only a half century after another population decided to immigrate with the express intent of founding a nation in their territory and they were given no option of refusing.
Another war in '67 and the Palestinians lose more land.
Then for the next half century Israel not only rules over Palestinian territory but they kick Palestinians off their land and then actively settle the seized land! This isn't just a few incidents, this is systematic, widespread, continuous land theft, it's so bad that as Israel considers pauses in Settlement activity to be significant negotiation concessions!
Any conversation about Israel/Palestine that ignores the reality of actively settling another people's land is completely missing the point.
What's your alternative suggestion?
Leave the sanctions in place, they are clearly working or Iran wouldn't be at the table talking.
But if they are at the table talking now why not make a deal? Maybe longer sanctions make a deal easier or maybe Rouhani is replaced by a hardliner and Obama by someone less palatable to the Muslim world. Instead of a deal both sides harden, Iran builds a bomb, and now you have a much more dangerous situation.
Perhaps increase them, isolate Iran to the point that it becomes quite hard to do business anywhere in the world. Make their oil worthless by intercepting it on the high seas, forbid them to ship it anywhere.
Invading and attacking them may not be required, they might cry uncle when the pain becomes great enough.
Or not, North Korea is the other way it goes I suppose.
Under what pretext? There's still the fact that you need international agreement to make stronger sanctions and that's very dubious. As for unilateral action that only works if the US starts making itself a pariah state which carries its own stack of consequences.