Yeah, hold up, I've heard the "protestors are actually violent insurrectionists" line...a LOT. And here it's being used because something something Israel?
The enemy of my enemy is nothing more than my enemy's enemy. The Iranian government is a brutal theocratic dictatorship that the Iranian people want gone. The fact that some assholes also want them gone (or in Netanyahu's case, pretend to want them gone while still very much wanting them around as a threat he can point to to play off his own atrocities as necessary security measures) doesn't make them any less evil.
Can we talk about how utterly horrific it is that the President of the United States gets at least some of his intelligence information from mainstream media news sources? He shouldn't be paying any attention to what the NYT or anyone in domestic media is saying whatsoever.
It's a broken record. Same ol tactics. Them come in and say they want to negotiate, use diplomacy. then they attack after they find out your weaknesses
Whenever I read that "xxx secret service started riots" I get suspicious. First, I don't think there exist a button that would get people to riot. Second, this delegitimizes any protests as just some foreign secret service attack.
This is such a fucking joke. Israel is somehow making the US do things...but idk, Qatar which gave Trump a 400mil airplane, no influence, Saudis who gave Kushner more than a billion, no influence, but the big bad Israel...all their fault...fucking hell.
Trump never repays anyone. EVER. And the Saudis didn't just write a check addressed personally to Kushner, but rather put a huge investment up for his firm to manage. He can't just personally claim all of that money for himself unless he wants a date with a bone saw - also, even if he could, it's not money in Trump's personal pocket so he'd give even less of a shit.
Meanwhile, Israel buys *a lot* of politicians, all over the world, not just Trump.
Even if the protests were spurred on by Israel, that doesn't make them illegitimate. You're going to have a hard time convincing me that protests against a totalitarian theocracy that curtails rights and oppresses its own people in the name of divine mandate will ever be wrong.
And as for the death tolls, inflated according to who? Iran's been under internet blackout since the beginning of 2026. They certainly aren't going to report accurate numbers themselves.
If you don't believe Iran's numbers, why would you believe Isr's numbers? The truth is probably somewhere in between. That being said, Isr and the US were the same countries claiming Iraq had WMDs and were building a nuke back in 2002. All lies that led to a failed occupation. No matter the internal situation in Iran, the idea of an invasion should have been met with extreme skepticism.
Nowhere did I say an invasion was warranted. But Blumenthal's post plays off the riots as simply some shadow play by Mossad, suggesting they were neither pro-democracy, and that the reported death tolls are manufactured - even possibly self inflicted, erasing the agency and sacrifice of Iranian protesters.
Blumenthal writes for RT - a Russian propaganda arm, and echoes Chomsky in apologizing for totalitarian regimes like Russia and China as long as they can be used to attack US foreign policy.
- Riots against the authoritarian theocracy were somehow not actually pro-democracy...because, I guess.
- Israel started the riots but sold them as only tiny protests to trump because apparently Iran looks nationally weaker if they're NOT rioting??
- death toll inflated by Iranian govt. Iran put it at 30k instead of 3k. Fair. Human Rights Activist News Agency listed the toll as 7,007 (6,488 of them protestors), with 11,744 still being investigated as of late February. It's not 3k
I'm not doubting Israel has their hand in shit. I'm just doubting the logic of the post. And that Trump currently has (or has ever had) a thought process that would even necessitate complex manipulation.
Give the man a free big mac and he's yours, you think he cares if someone wants democracy? Spooking him by saying they were overthrowing authoritarianism would make more sense.
The timeline doesn't make sense, the NYT article stated that Mossad's plan was to foment riots after the start of the bombing in late Feb, whereas the text here suggests Mossad had a hand in the anti-regime riots that occurred in early Jan.
Just so everyone knows. Bit of a massive misrepresentation of the info provided. Seems it's basically more anti journalism propaganda guised as a revelation they would have never seen... if not for the journalism they are criticizing. 80% of what he's claiming is unsourced and/or just not really reading the new info. https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/22/us/politics/iran-israel-trump-netanyahu-mossad.html
Here's basically all we actually know about the Israeli push.
Yes, there has been a massive wave of white washing the Iranian regime since this started. The age old anti semetic "Jews control the world" racist garbage always comes out. Morons can't be rational and criticize the state of Israel. It's always straight to the tinfoil hat bigotry.
news flash - imgur has been overrun by propaganda and (in my estimation) foreign media psy-ops a long time ago. very few of these bombshell claims come with sources and mostly appeal to what the imgur population already want to believe. it is an echo chamber and i think forces are at play to make it as such
It's very insistent on calling it "violent regime-change riots" implying that the people initiated the violence against the Republican Guard, and putting all the blame for the casualties on the people, not the regime killing them. Very troubling choice of terminology.
I think the unstated thing there is that the "israeli-backed rioters" were agents provocateurs there to stoke the fires and *ensure* they turned very violent. You do see stuff like that all the time in protests, where police use plainclothes officers to try and make a reason to crack down, so not a surprise to hesr it being used by spy agencies to attempt to turn a populace (further) against a rather trigger happy government.
The "source" is Max Blumenthal, editor of The Greyzone and a Russian asset. The Greyzone provides Russia-slobbering coverage pretending to be left-leaning while denying that Russia has ever done anything wrong, denying that Assad launched a nerve gas attack, denying that China is abusing the Uyghurs, etc. Basically, no one outside the West has done anything wrong, ever.
Well to your last point some of the rioters were calling for the reinstatement of the Shah and waving his portrait around; which seems like a very Mossad type move because ive never met a single Iranian who missed the days of the Shah.
To the broader point, I do like stories like this and ill tell you why; i think for far far too long we have accepted our media as gospel.
Like obviously we have always had some clearly biased ones like Fox, but this article cites the Guardian, and previous 1/
None of that is an excuse for offering claims without proof. "These guys are bad, therefore we should believe everything said about them that's bad" is not rational thinking when applied to Israel any more than it is when applied to Iran. There were people here a couple months ago just as credulously willing to believe that the Iranian government killed 37,000 protesters and that the pro-regime-change media 100% accurately had the names and autopsies of every last one.
I see it as the international version of "positive discrimination", and i do have a basis for my belief as I did spend 21 years of my life in and around these countries we're told are nests of devils and dictators, home to savage and brutal people who unchecked will destroy the world with their reckless pursuit of the tools of the white man.
Thats what I hear now when I listen to the news rant about Iran or China or some other "middle tier" nation. It reminds me of a line from MacArthurs 1/
Radio address from the USS Missouri following Japans surrender, when he sat there with a straight face and talked about commodore Perry bringing "western science and enlightenment" to Japan.
Yeah... I happen to be half Japanese, Perry's expedition from our end didnt look so enlightened; partially due to the fleet being 90% military vessels despite claiming to be traders.
Thats the history of America, and of the west in general to be honest because after America forced Japan to trade at 2/
Gunpoint, the French, Russians and British all showed up and did the same; although the Russians in true Russian style got wiped out by a hurricane and the British ironically were chasing Russias far eastern squadron during the crimean war but still the end result was they all use their vast array of cannon to extract heavily lopsided trade deals.
And then ofc Japan became an imperial power, something which began with those western threats. We didnt even have a unified navy until you all 3/
The fact that one side does something bad does not either excuse bad things done by the other side, nor does doing bad things mean that one side or another does EVERY bad thing they're accused of.
But that's not really the point. The point is, you should never blindly believe a claim without evidence. Somebody says "36,000 Iranian protesters were murdered"? Okay, show me proof. Somebody says "Israel secretly was behind all the protests"? Okay, show me proof.
There's a saying that's attributed to Voltaire. "Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities." In other words, if you uncritically believe stuff without evidence--the way the right loves to--then you are so divorced from objective reality that you will believe anything about those you choose to hate.
"Of all the things at risk, the loss of an objective reality is perhaps the most dangerous."
To the Israeli genocide i would have trusted the BBC implicitly too. I think we need to start awakening to the fact that propaganda is not a tool used exclusively by our "enemies" and that some of those "enemies" probably wouldnt be viewed by us as enemies at all if we actually got the truth about their goals and reasons.
It may sound obvious and you may sit there and think to yourself "well duh I do that already", but do you? Honestly?, if you see a story about China on CNN staging military 2/
Exercises do you immediately think "Taiwan"? Because I bet 99% of us do, but what if you spin it around abd put yourself in Chinas shoes.
From the tail end of the 1800s all the way until 1980 the country was either torn apart by civil war, torn apart by colonialisation, torn apart by ideological differences or torn apart by domestic upheaval. This is a nation that can probably rightfully claim to be the origin of human civilisation, yes there were settlements in Iraq and Syria and Turkey etc 3/
But the first kingdoms, the first cities numbering tens of thousands, the first true civilisations; thats China, and they are rightly proud of it. Now you are China today, you are constantly being told you are an imperialist and a threat by a nation who has sovereign military bases in half a dozen nations surrounding you, by a nation which just 3 years ago finally ended a 20 year war in a land you share a border with, by a nation who has routinely taken aggressive economic steps against your 4/
Friends and military action against not one but two of your closest allies, and waged a war on a third that would have bought them directly to your southern border if they were the least bit competent. The same nation who not only is the only one to ever use nuclear weapons but who famously had a general who had to be removed from his position at the height of war because he wanted to nuke your capital.
When you put it like that, does building some artificial islands and getting into aquatic 5/
I see China sending thousands of ships to South America to steal their marine life. I see China embedding hidden code in critical Telco infra (backbone components I used to work with). I see China interfering in Canadian elections and laundering billions of dollars in Canada. I see China buying government votes internationally by offering to build things in poorer Caribbean and African countries and then saddling them with debt. So no., don't see Taiwan, I see a brutal regime.
Every single thing you just said has been done by America in multiple countries around the world, so again I have to say you are spun.
Opposition to America from a broad base of Americans is a thing exclusive to the Trump era, but none of those things you listed are exclusive to Trump era America.
I never said it was, I'm not sure why you think condemning one regime signifies approval for another. It's like this rabid responder of "if you ask a question of want to discuss a topic, you're racist, radical left, transphobe, antisemitic, islamophobe, genocidal, ad nauseum name calling". What happened to discourse? You've been gaslit to be incensed by anything not fully signed with your narrative. It's like talk radio on roids. All just designed to rile you up.
Thanks for the link .. there is nothing in this NYT article to suggest that Israel backed protesters killed their own as a coverup or to inflate the numbers ??
It doesn't even say that protests in January were incited by Israel, only that Israel told Trump admin that's they believe they could incite protest leading to civil war AFTER Americans kill Iranian leadership, they thought that the protests from January could repeat in March. Whole post is Iranian propaganda.
Yes, but that doesn't stop being from automatically upvoting anything that says Israel is bad. I mean, they are bad (gov't/Bibi/Likud party are just pieces of ****), but that doesn't mean we should sent any Israel related internet made up conspiracy theory on twitter to the front page.
Anti-regime does not automatically mean pro-democracy. It could mean pro-monarchy. Or, nothing. I'm not convinced anyone except the Shah has thought about what comes after the regime is overthrown.
The pre-Shah Government was the last reasonable Government they had in Iran. The Shah turned into an autocrat but still nothing could ever have been as bad as the last 45 years.
Re: monarchists, I can tell you that there is a VERY active spam campaign on Twitter, including in Community Notes, that's trying to astroturf the idea that the Iranians are crying out for the return of the Shah. Whether it's entirely by Pahlahvi's expat borderline cultists or if it's being backed by Israel/others, that I can't tell you for sure.
I suspect him and his cohorts are the only ones thinking about what comes after. While he claims to be pro-democracy, he's sure milking his "rightful heir" role.
I don't believe a majority of Iranian people are clamoring for a return to monarchy.
You can just about smell the desperation coming off the whole campaign. Over the top rhetoric, accusations of "pro-regime plants" thrown at anyone who doesn't agree, etc. Not really surprising; I mean, if Iran ever actually shook off the current regime, he'd no longer be able to mooch off his status, and go from being a never-was to just a nobody.
there are no sources to support this post. imgur has been overrun by propaganda and (in my estimation) foreign media psy-ops a long time ago. very few of these bombshell claims come with sources and mostly appeal to what the imgur population already want to believe. it is an echo chamber and i think forces are at play to make it as such
*reins. But Israel definitely wants to reign over the region. All this, combined with the fact of Drumpf basically being bribed by the Saudis and the Qataris (who are big enemies of Iran), and this is why the whole shitshow is happening.
Me being Vietnamese and getting told that. That shit just bounces off me with that. I will continue to shit on Zionists and laugh at their pretend victimhood.
This is dangerously close to the age old line about Jews secretly controlling the governments of the world....
Is that really a more logical explanation than a bunch of western nations having similar foreign policy objectives and goals? This is just good old fashioned imperialism.
If you know that you're not anti-Semitic, yet are called one, take it as a badge of honour. It mean you've pissed off a Zionist with an argument they can't counter and they've used their "big" weapon, which is gradually being neutralised through overuse.
That's what Orwell called doublespeak. The right wingers who welcome many holocaust-denying white supremacists into their fold, knowingly conflate anti-zionism with antisemitism. They actually have no qualms with real antisemites.
Money notwithstanding, it's political suicide to be considered "antisemitic" even if denouncing Zionism is not the same thing. Zionism has basically been branded as "Jewish" and it certainly can be. But it isn't the same thing. You can be a Christian Nazi (see America and Nazi Germany). You can be a Zio Jew. In the end, Zio/Nazi/MAGA are extremist hate cults masquerading under a religion. It's important to make the distinction. If people realized that Zio =/= Jew, support for them would dry up
Israel is basically the Wests gate into the Middle East. Its their guy. Which means they will always support and protect them.
That has meant Israel has gotten a big ego, along with religious extremism and the fact the land was literally taken for them, that they are deserving of everything they want.
They are essentially the troubled, shithead child with the uncaring, coddling rich parents. They do bad, cry to daddy and he comes in with money and power to smooth things over and give them what
I think they've also identified so deeply with the tragedies of the past for European and Arab Jews that they are unable to consciously examine the genocidal machinations that their own fascist regime has propagandized them into accepting. Its become their Jungian shadow, they rationalize it as different, having no qualms of condemning and attacking the whole for the transgressions of a few while denying any legitimacy in retaliation for stealing people's land, country and home.
Yeah but then how would America get their hands on all those sweet, sweet resources? The Iranians tried to nationalize their oil once, and *boy* did that piss off the US and UK, which led to them overthrowing Iran's government, which then led to the Ayatollahs taking power in the revolution that followed to overthrow the Shah that the western powers had installed.
They want. The lies are mostly for the public, so you believe and support Israel as an ally and ignore what it does, and what your country does for it. But what's easier than a parent wrapped around your finger and doesnt care? A parent thats stupid enough to believe the same propaganda you feed to the public
I know some Jewish people who are so triggered by even the slightest suggestion that Israel does wrong, or that the nature of the Israeli state be questioned, that they will immediately identify you as an antisemite and consider you an enemy.
In the same way that the right-wing coopted "woke" and redefined "liberal", the pro-Israel movement has coopted antisemitism. In the Western zeitgeist, it immediately implies racism against Jews. That's a myopic translation.
It's not a myopic translation. It's one of those words that means something different from what it should.
"Beginning in 1879 the compound word antisemitismus was first used in print in Germany as a "scientific-sounding term" for Judenhass (lit. 'Jew-hatred') and it has since been used to refer to anti-Jewish sentiment alone."
That's not really relevant to the definition of anti-semite, only to the etymology. Words are not bound by their etymology, they're defined by their use.
Hell, most Jews nowadays aren't even semites. They're racist towards the semite ones calling them fake Jews. They treat Beta Israelis(Ethiopia) the same way for how they look. You live in Ethiopia for over a thousand years. See what you're gonna look like.
"Beginning in 1879, the compound word antisemitismus was first used in print in Germany as a "scientific-sounding term" for Judenhass (lit. 'Jew-hatred'), and it has since been used to refer to anti-Jewish sentiment alone."
There are semitic Christians, but most Christians are not ethnically semitic. The same is true for Muslims, by the way. Jews are a religious ethnic group in a way Christians and Muslims are not.
Arab Muslims are Semitic but the majority of the Muslim world exists outside the Middle East so it would be correct to say the majority of Muslims are not Semitic.
Muslims can be Semetic, and when we talk about in in the context of the various Middle East countries, it's often a functional overlap, but - not every Muslim is a Semite.
You should be sick of being called anti-semitic. Because that behavior (calling criticism of Israel anti-semitic) is a pipeline for funeling people into the alt right because that has been the only political wing that's been willing to accept that viewpoint. Dem establishment is waaaay to zionist for anyone's good. I'll vote Dem over GOP for sure, but also, need to vote all these establishment fucks out every opportunity we get and replace with pro Palestinian progressives.
I'll stop being anti-semetic when they stop telling me they are inherently better than me. That's what the phrase god's chosen means. My God says I'm better than you. Fuck off I won't accept that fucking bigoted ass viewpoint based in completely fantasy.
It's the foundational thinking that's the problem. I have inherent good over you, it is very easily shifted into " I get to decide you have no value/good". As the basis of their own standards it's an inherently bigoted stance.
1000% this. We have real progressive candidates but they lose in the primaries because AIPAC and other superpacs overshadow them. A lot of so-called democrats are against ranked choice and other truly progressive solutions that would give voters more power
Hell, I'm still convinced Maxwell was a Mossad asset who "groomed" Epstein to do all the shit he did, to ensnare the wealth of the world so they would be pliable for Israeli influencing. Leave it to Israel to take the WORST of the anti-semitic stereotypes of the last few centuries and literally make some of them true.
Well, maybe we can start asking how she got caught in her own submarine. They mentioned it when she was arrested, then everybody stopped talking about it
Dershowitz confessed to a Mossad connection. And some believed he was grooming Epstein to be a Mossad agent. Maxwell's father was long suspected of having ties to Mossad.
All one need do is consider her father. It's no coincidence that she hooked up with Epstein, who was also connected to Dershowitz--another Mossad connection. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Maxwell
krynny
.
bad1080
TACO has been played
NotACanadian
Yeah, hold up, I've heard the "protestors are actually violent insurrectionists" line...a LOT. And here it's being used because something something Israel?
MeeseOnABeam
played him like a damn fiddle
Traquaire
"Western human rights industrial complex." That's a new one to me.
DeepThought42
bonetonelord
The enemy of my enemy is nothing more than my enemy's enemy. The Iranian government is a brutal theocratic dictatorship that the Iranian people want gone. The fact that some assholes also want them gone (or in Netanyahu's case, pretend to want them gone while still very much wanting them around as a threat he can point to to play off his own atrocities as necessary security measures) doesn't make them any less evil.
TheFastpaws
Israel and Russia are cancers upon this planet.
StellarJay77
Can we talk about how utterly horrific it is that the President of the United States gets at least some of his intelligence information from mainstream media news sources? He shouldn't be paying any attention to what the NYT or anyone in domestic media is saying whatsoever.
mousethatroared
Maybe if there weren't an incompetent in the Whitehouse, the US wouldn't be led around by another country
Sqeezytzatziki
It's a broken record. Same ol tactics. Them come in and say they want to negotiate, use diplomacy. then they attack after they find out your weaknesses
PanNonOpticon
Whenever I read that "xxx secret service started riots" I get suspicious. First, I don't think there exist a button that would get people to riot. Second, this delegitimizes any protests as just some foreign secret service attack.
TheWeebleWobler
As much as I would like to believe Isreal played a role like this, I would like sources to ensure we are not just being misled.
cytherians
Supporting NY Times article:
https://archive.ph/KkEK1
(Given their pro-Israel stance, pretty surprising that this article got out).
Etereo
And imgur was first in line to belive it
jwillywill
https://imgur.com/u1lYjlW.mp4
CocaineAndSelfPleasure
Wow, that got downvoted quickly. Gave ya one at least.
Just purchased one of his books recently.
jwillywill
The Z's are out here
mardukkur
Oh FFS the anti-regime protests in Iran were not faked up by Israeli intelligence, get a fucking grip.
bad1080
link to the article?
dedpan
I think it's this one https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/22/us/politics/iran-israel-trump-netanyahu-mossad.html
bad1080
thanks, archived link: https://archive.is/EppOS
pctech3573
biggiej
This is such a fucking joke. Israel is somehow making the US do things...but idk, Qatar which gave Trump a 400mil airplane, no influence, Saudis who gave Kushner more than a billion, no influence, but the big bad Israel...all their fault...fucking hell.
Daliena06
Trump never repays anyone. EVER. And the Saudis didn't just write a check addressed personally to Kushner, but rather put a huge investment up for his firm to manage. He can't just personally claim all of that money for himself unless he wants a date with a bone saw - also, even if he could, it's not money in Trump's personal pocket so he'd give even less of a shit.
Meanwhile, Israel buys *a lot* of politicians, all over the world, not just Trump.
Mxlespxles
Sounds so much like the Russian Tactic
C111red
Can you post a link, please? I would prefer to have a direct source to form my opinion.
NaughtButOne
Even if the protests were spurred on by Israel, that doesn't make them illegitimate. You're going to have a hard time convincing me that protests against a totalitarian theocracy that curtails rights and oppresses its own people in the name of divine mandate will ever be wrong.
And as for the death tolls, inflated according to who? Iran's been under internet blackout since the beginning of 2026. They certainly aren't going to report accurate numbers themselves.
LokJok
If you don't believe Iran's numbers, why would you believe Isr's numbers? The truth is probably somewhere in between. That being said, Isr and the US were the same countries claiming Iraq had WMDs and were building a nuke back in 2002. All lies that led to a failed occupation. No matter the internal situation in Iran, the idea of an invasion should have been met with extreme skepticism.
NaughtButOne
Nowhere did I say an invasion was warranted. But Blumenthal's post plays off the riots as simply some shadow play by Mossad, suggesting they were neither pro-democracy, and that the reported death tolls are manufactured - even possibly self inflicted, erasing the agency and sacrifice of Iranian protesters.
Blumenthal writes for RT - a Russian propaganda arm, and echoes Chomsky in apologizing for totalitarian regimes like Russia and China as long as they can be used to attack US foreign policy.
Alchemicrb
It's time to and netanyahu's Israel. It's time for us to get our American tax dollars back
MirroredImage
Wait, ok, so
- Riots against the authoritarian theocracy were somehow not actually pro-democracy...because, I guess.
- Israel started the riots but sold them as only tiny protests to trump because apparently Iran looks nationally weaker if they're NOT rioting??
- death toll inflated by Iranian govt. Iran put it at 30k instead of 3k. Fair. Human Rights Activist News Agency listed the toll as 7,007 (6,488 of them protestors), with 11,744 still being investigated as of late February. It's not 3k
MirroredImage
Source: https://www.en-hrana.org/the-crimson-winter-a-50-day-record-of-irans-2025-2026-nationwide-protests/
I'm not doubting Israel has their hand in shit. I'm just doubting the logic of the post. And that Trump currently has (or has ever had) a thought process that would even necessitate complex manipulation.
Give the man a free big mac and he's yours, you think he cares if someone wants democracy? Spooking him by saying they were overthrowing authoritarianism would make more sense.
baals
Dude American media EVERYWHERE is saturated with pro Israel propaganda
Goodmerlinpeen
The timeline doesn't make sense, the NYT article stated that Mossad's plan was to foment riots after the start of the bombing in late Feb, whereas the text here suggests Mossad had a hand in the anti-regime riots that occurred in early Jan.
Theshnazzyone
Just so everyone knows. Bit of a massive misrepresentation of the info provided. Seems it's basically more anti journalism propaganda guised as a revelation they would have never seen... if not for the journalism they are criticizing. 80% of what he's claiming is unsourced and/or just not really reading the new info. https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/22/us/politics/iran-israel-trump-netanyahu-mossad.html
Here's basically all we actually know about the Israeli push.
gtollie
Is there a source here ?
Israel stimulated the riots in Jan ( makes sense .. but would like a source )
Israel / western media inflated the numbers of the protests and covered as a pro-democracy ( again .. makes sense, source please )
The rioters supported by Israel killed their own protesters ( ???? would really like to see a source for this )
Also .. isn’t anti-regime almost pro-democracy by default ?? Unless they are trying to replace this regime with another theocracy
InTangier
I
kitnnicole9
Article only says anonymous sources shared that was a plan but no verified proof.
BrdCdn
Yes, there has been a massive wave of white washing the Iranian regime since this started. The age old anti semetic "Jews control the world" racist garbage always comes out. Morons can't be rational and criticize the state of Israel. It's always straight to the tinfoil hat bigotry.
M4Firefly
news flash - imgur has been overrun by propaganda and (in my estimation) foreign media psy-ops a long time ago. very few of these bombshell claims come with sources and mostly appeal to what the imgur population already want to believe. it is an echo chamber and i think forces are at play to make it as such
madmanz123
Yeah, this post seems like b******* to at least a decent degree
SalmonTheWise
It's very insistent on calling it "violent regime-change riots" implying that the people initiated the violence against the Republican Guard, and putting all the blame for the casualties on the people, not the regime killing them. Very troubling choice of terminology.
ElbowDeepInAPoliceState
I think the unstated thing there is that the "israeli-backed rioters" were agents provocateurs there to stoke the fires and *ensure* they turned very violent. You do see stuff like that all the time in protests, where police use plainclothes officers to try and make a reason to crack down, so not a surprise to hesr it being used by spy agencies to attempt to turn a populace (further) against a rather trigger happy government.
IDontKnowWhatToDoAnymoreAndImTired
The "source" is Max Blumenthal, editor of The Greyzone and a Russian asset. The Greyzone provides Russia-slobbering coverage pretending to be left-leaning while denying that Russia has ever done anything wrong, denying that Assad launched a nerve gas attack, denying that China is abusing the Uyghurs, etc. Basically, no one outside the West has done anything wrong, ever.
AvatarTommyBee
In that case the "the Western human rights industrial complex" makes sense.
IDontKnowWhatToDoAnymoreAndImTired
Very much so. Blumenthal's thing is basically Tankie rhetoric used to service half of the most corrupt and awful people on Earth.
FrancsTireur
Well to your last point some of the rioters were calling for the reinstatement of the Shah and waving his portrait around; which seems like a very Mossad type move because ive never met a single Iranian who missed the days of the Shah.
To the broader point, I do like stories like this and ill tell you why; i think for far far too long we have accepted our media as gospel.
Like obviously we have always had some clearly biased ones like Fox, but this article cites the Guardian, and previous 1/
IDontKnowWhatToDoAnymoreAndImTired
None of that is an excuse for offering claims without proof. "These guys are bad, therefore we should believe everything said about them that's bad" is not rational thinking when applied to Israel any more than it is when applied to Iran. There were people here a couple months ago just as credulously willing to believe that the Iranian government killed 37,000 protesters and that the pro-regime-change media 100% accurately had the names and autopsies of every last one.
Claims require proof.
FrancsTireur
I see it as the international version of "positive discrimination", and i do have a basis for my belief as I did spend 21 years of my life in and around these countries we're told are nests of devils and dictators, home to savage and brutal people who unchecked will destroy the world with their reckless pursuit of the tools of the white man.
Thats what I hear now when I listen to the news rant about Iran or China or some other "middle tier" nation. It reminds me of a line from MacArthurs 1/
FrancsTireur
Radio address from the USS Missouri following Japans surrender, when he sat there with a straight face and talked about commodore Perry bringing "western science and enlightenment" to Japan.
Yeah... I happen to be half Japanese, Perry's expedition from our end didnt look so enlightened; partially due to the fleet being 90% military vessels despite claiming to be traders.
Thats the history of America, and of the west in general to be honest because after America forced Japan to trade at 2/
FrancsTireur
Gunpoint, the French, Russians and British all showed up and did the same; although the Russians in true Russian style got wiped out by a hurricane and the British ironically were chasing Russias far eastern squadron during the crimean war but still the end result was they all use their vast array of cannon to extract heavily lopsided trade deals.
And then ofc Japan became an imperial power, something which began with those western threats. We didnt even have a unified navy until you all 3/
IDontKnowWhatToDoAnymoreAndImTired
The fact that one side does something bad does not either excuse bad things done by the other side, nor does doing bad things mean that one side or another does EVERY bad thing they're accused of.
But that's not really the point. The point is, you should never blindly believe a claim without evidence. Somebody says "36,000 Iranian protesters were murdered"? Okay, show me proof. Somebody says "Israel secretly was behind all the protests"? Okay, show me proof.
IDontKnowWhatToDoAnymoreAndImTired
There's a saying that's attributed to Voltaire. "Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities." In other words, if you uncritically believe stuff without evidence--the way the right loves to--then you are so divorced from objective reality that you will believe anything about those you choose to hate.
"Of all the things at risk, the loss of an objective reality is perhaps the most dangerous."
FrancsTireur
To the Israeli genocide i would have trusted the BBC implicitly too. I think we need to start awakening to the fact that propaganda is not a tool used exclusively by our "enemies" and that some of those "enemies" probably wouldnt be viewed by us as enemies at all if we actually got the truth about their goals and reasons.
It may sound obvious and you may sit there and think to yourself "well duh I do that already", but do you? Honestly?, if you see a story about China on CNN staging military 2/
FrancsTireur
Exercises do you immediately think "Taiwan"? Because I bet 99% of us do, but what if you spin it around abd put yourself in Chinas shoes.
From the tail end of the 1800s all the way until 1980 the country was either torn apart by civil war, torn apart by colonialisation, torn apart by ideological differences or torn apart by domestic upheaval. This is a nation that can probably rightfully claim to be the origin of human civilisation, yes there were settlements in Iraq and Syria and Turkey etc 3/
FrancsTireur
But the first kingdoms, the first cities numbering tens of thousands, the first true civilisations; thats China, and they are rightly proud of it. Now you are China today, you are constantly being told you are an imperialist and a threat by a nation who has sovereign military bases in half a dozen nations surrounding you, by a nation which just 3 years ago finally ended a 20 year war in a land you share a border with, by a nation who has routinely taken aggressive economic steps against your 4/
FrancsTireur
Friends and military action against not one but two of your closest allies, and waged a war on a third that would have bought them directly to your southern border if they were the least bit competent. The same nation who not only is the only one to ever use nuclear weapons but who famously had a general who had to be removed from his position at the height of war because he wanted to nuke your capital.
When you put it like that, does building some artificial islands and getting into aquatic 5/
RunningInSpaces
I see China sending thousands of ships to South America to steal their marine life. I see China embedding hidden code in critical Telco infra (backbone components I used to work with). I see China interfering in Canadian elections and laundering billions of dollars in Canada. I see China buying government votes internationally by offering to build things in poorer Caribbean and African countries and then saddling them with debt. So no., don't see Taiwan, I see a brutal regime.
FrancsTireur
Every single thing you just said has been done by America in multiple countries around the world, so again I have to say you are spun.
Opposition to America from a broad base of Americans is a thing exclusive to the Trump era, but none of those things you listed are exclusive to Trump era America.
RunningInSpaces
I never said it was, I'm not sure why you think condemning one regime signifies approval for another. It's like this rabid responder of "if you ask a question of want to discuss a topic, you're racist, radical left, transphobe, antisemitic, islamophobe, genocidal, ad nauseum name calling". What happened to discourse? You've been gaslit to be incensed by anything not fully signed with your narrative. It's like talk radio on roids. All just designed to rile you up.
bekkayya
yeah! we should democratically elect somebody to do those things instead! Thats more just!
zer0vector
The source is this NYT article: https://archive.ph/KkEK1
gtollie
Thanks for the link .. there is nothing in this NYT article to suggest that Israel backed protesters killed their own as a coverup or to inflate the numbers ??
SalmonTheWise
It doesn't even say that protests in January were incited by Israel, only that Israel told Trump admin that's they believe they could incite protest leading to civil war AFTER Americans kill Iranian leadership, they thought that the protests from January could repeat in March. Whole post is Iranian propaganda.
ButtscratchMcPherson
Yes, but that doesn't stop being from automatically upvoting anything that says Israel is bad. I mean, they are bad (gov't/Bibi/Likud party are just pieces of ****), but that doesn't mean we should sent any Israel related internet made up conspiracy theory on twitter to the front page.
IgnisInvictus
I'd like to see sources too.
Anti-regime does not automatically mean pro-democracy. It could mean pro-monarchy. Or, nothing. I'm not convinced anyone except the Shah has thought about what comes after the regime is overthrown.
WaxedApple
The Shah just agrees to whatever the US and Israel tell him to do, because he is a puppet just like the previous Shah.
jbrontey
The pre-Shah Government was the last reasonable Government they had in Iran. The Shah turned into an autocrat but still nothing could ever have been as bad as the last 45 years.
IDontKnowWhatToDoAnymoreAndImTired
Re: monarchists, I can tell you that there is a VERY active spam campaign on Twitter, including in Community Notes, that's trying to astroturf the idea that the Iranians are crying out for the return of the Shah. Whether it's entirely by Pahlahvi's expat borderline cultists or if it's being backed by Israel/others, that I can't tell you for sure.
IgnisInvictus
I suspect him and his cohorts are the only ones thinking about what comes after. While he claims to be pro-democracy, he's sure milking his "rightful heir" role.
I don't believe a majority of Iranian people are clamoring for a return to monarchy.
IDontKnowWhatToDoAnymoreAndImTired
You can just about smell the desperation coming off the whole campaign. Over the top rhetoric, accusations of "pro-regime plants" thrown at anyone who doesn't agree, etc. Not really surprising; I mean, if Iran ever actually shook off the current regime, he'd no longer be able to mooch off his status, and go from being a never-was to just a nobody.
IgnisInvictus
Is it just me, or is the Western world led around by the nose with Israel holding the reigns?
And I'm sick of being called an antisemite because I don't support zionism.
M4Firefly
there are no sources to support this post. imgur has been overrun by propaganda and (in my estimation) foreign media psy-ops a long time ago. very few of these bombshell claims come with sources and mostly appeal to what the imgur population already want to believe. it is an echo chamber and i think forces are at play to make it as such
howcansomeonepossiblyhavethesameweirdusernamealready
*reins. But Israel definitely wants to reign over the region. All this, combined with the fact of Drumpf basically being bribed by the Saudis and the Qataris (who are big enemies of Iran), and this is why the whole shitshow is happening.
FaeVikingPrincess
I'm tired of being called an antisemite for calling put one semitic group trying to genocide another semetic group.
ChiLLeCheeze
Me being Vietnamese and getting told that. That shit just bounces off me with that. I will continue to shit on Zionists and laugh at their pretend victimhood.
liveOffOfDownVotes
fuck imaginary friends running any government. You should not be ridiculed for thinking Santa Claus should not be in charge of a country.
Irbricksceo
This is dangerously close to the age old line about Jews secretly controlling the governments of the world....
Is that really a more logical explanation than a bunch of western nations having similar foreign policy objectives and goals? This is just good old fashioned imperialism.
southoffrance
If you know that you're not anti-Semitic, yet are called one, take it as a badge of honour. It mean you've pissed off a Zionist with an argument they can't counter and they've used their "big" weapon, which is gradually being neutralised through overuse.
tentaclefriendly
Epstein's main business was developing blackmail and kompromat material, by recording videos of important people engaging in child molestation.
Mossad and Putin were major customers
tentaclefriendly
You can infer most foreign policy outcomes based on that knowledge
GwensBackOnHerBS
Isreal and Jewish people are different things.
Jewish people are people just like anyone.
Israel is an evil government led by a genocidal maniac.
Lovingimpaler
That's what Orwell called doublespeak. The right wingers who welcome many holocaust-denying white supremacists into their fold, knowingly conflate anti-zionism with antisemitism. They actually have no qualms with real antisemites.
LuLuPennyAndOdium44
The US helped Isreal with Palestinians, which lead to formation of the plans for 9/11. We all collectively seemed to have forgotten.
defensivebackhair
Money notwithstanding, it's political suicide to be considered "antisemitic" even if denouncing Zionism is not the same thing.
Zionism has basically been branded as "Jewish" and it certainly can be. But it isn't the same thing. You can be a Christian Nazi (see America and Nazi Germany). You can be a Zio Jew. In the end, Zio/Nazi/MAGA are extremist hate cults masquerading under a religion. It's important to make the distinction. If people realized that Zio =/= Jew, support for them would dry up
Someshithead241
Israel is basically the Wests gate into the Middle East. Its their guy. Which means they will always support and protect them.
That has meant Israel has gotten a big ego, along with religious extremism and the fact the land was literally taken for them, that they are deserving of everything they want.
They are essentially the troubled, shithead child with the uncaring, coddling rich parents. They do bad, cry to daddy and he comes in with money and power to smooth things over and give them what
BHPaperstacks
I think they've also identified so deeply with the tragedies of the past for European and Arab Jews that they are unable to consciously examine the genocidal machinations that their own fascist regime has propagandized them into accepting. Its become their Jungian shadow, they rationalize it as different, having no qualms of condemning and attacking the whole for the transgressions of a few while denying any legitimacy in retaliation for stealing people's land, country and home.
SavageDrums
I feel like the rest of the middle east would be friendlier if America wasn't constantly overthrowing governments....
Daliena06
Yeah but then how would America get their hands on all those sweet, sweet resources? The Iranians tried to nationalize their oil once, and *boy* did that piss off the US and UK, which led to them overthrowing Iran's government, which then led to the Ayatollahs taking power in the revolution that followed to overthrow the Shah that the western powers had installed.
Someshithead241
They want. The lies are mostly for the public, so you believe and support Israel as an ally and ignore what it does, and what your country does for it.
But what's easier than a parent wrapped around your finger and doesnt care? A parent thats stupid enough to believe the same propaganda you feed to the public
cytherians
I know some Jewish people who are so triggered by even the slightest suggestion that Israel does wrong, or that the nature of the Israeli state be questioned, that they will immediately identify you as an antisemite and consider you an enemy.
cytherians
In the same way that the right-wing coopted "woke" and redefined "liberal", the pro-Israel movement has coopted antisemitism. In the Western zeitgeist, it immediately implies racism against Jews. That's a myopic translation.
Semitic people, definition: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semitic_people
IgnisInvictus
It's not a myopic translation. It's one of those words that means something different from what it should.
"Beginning in 1879 the compound word antisemitismus was first used in print in Germany as a "scientific-sounding term" for Judenhass (lit. 'Jew-hatred') and it has since been used to refer to anti-Jewish sentiment alone."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisemitism
If someone were Anti-Semitic People, they'd just be called racist.
The word has weird linguistic background.
MarkoffChaney
"But look at what Nazis did to us! You owe us, so we can do whatever we want now!" /s
Altqwenta
If you read jews holy book, you can see they were the original supremacists.
Butterupmybuttcheeks
They call themselves god's chosen, there is no difference in that mentality that the master race horseshit .
clonedeeznuts
Which includes being even worse nazis!
MarkoffChaney
Maybe they were just taking notes in Auschwitz.
TheLastSpaceman
Muslims are semites, friend. They kill them every day. Don't feel bad. #fuckisrael
lalalalsblablabal
Are Muslims semites? I believe that you are referring to Arabs being semites. Not all Muslims are Arabs.
pgdave
That's not really relevant to the definition of anti-semite, only to the etymology. Words are not bound by their etymology, they're defined by their use.
vanishinggirl
Thank you for pointing that out- always drives me crazy when it’s just assumed only Jews are semites!!
NeoNeanderthal
Hell, most Jews nowadays aren't even semites. They're racist towards the semite ones calling them fake Jews. They treat Beta Israelis(Ethiopia) the same way for how they look. You live in Ethiopia for over a thousand years. See what you're gonna look like.
lalalalsblablabal
It’s just Nazis being Nazis
IgnisInvictus
It's because the term "antisemite" is a political one with a specific definition.
Politically, it doesn't mean anti-Semitic People, it specifically means Jew-hatred. The word has some interesting linguistic background.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisemitism
"Beginning in 1879, the compound word antisemitismus was first used in print in Germany as a "scientific-sounding term" for Judenhass (lit. 'Jew-hatred'), and it has since been used to refer to anti-Jewish sentiment alone."
imightbeabearindisguise
Aren't Christians Semites also? I mean... They are literally a branch from Judaism.
Callynd
There are semitic Christians, but most Christians are not ethnically semitic. The same is true for Muslims, by the way. Jews are a religious ethnic group in a way Christians and Muslims are not.
TheLastSpaceman
That's not correct. Muslims are semites just like Jewish folks. Please don't spread bullshit like this.
UnsolicitedRichardPicture
Arab Muslims are Semitic but the majority of the Muslim world exists outside the Middle East so it would be correct to say the majority of Muslims are not Semitic.
Orakia80
Most Christians are not Semetic, as it's an umbrella term for a large set of ethnic groups from the general area, rather than a religious term.
Ihug
Then saying "Muslims are semites" is false? I thought it was Arabs that were also semites.
Orakia80
Muslims can be Semetic, and when we talk about in in the context of the various Middle East countries, it's often a functional overlap, but - not every Muslim is a Semite.
ElbowDeepInAHeadlessHorseman
You should be sick of being called anti-semitic. Because that behavior (calling criticism of Israel anti-semitic) is a pipeline for funeling people into the alt right because that has been the only political wing that's been willing to accept that viewpoint. Dem establishment is waaaay to zionist for anyone's good. I'll vote Dem over GOP for sure, but also, need to vote all these establishment fucks out every opportunity we get and replace with pro Palestinian progressives.
Butterupmybuttcheeks
I'll stop being anti-semetic when they stop telling me they are inherently better than me. That's what the phrase god's chosen means. My God says I'm better than you. Fuck off I won't accept that fucking bigoted ass viewpoint based in completely fantasy.
ElbowDeepInAHeadlessHorseman
Meh, I'm an atheist. I can ignore that kind of "my god is better than your god" shit, but the literal genocide isn't so easy to ignore.
Butterupmybuttcheeks
It's the foundational thinking that's the problem. I have inherent good over you, it is very easily shifted into " I get to decide you have no value/good". As the basis of their own standards it's an inherently bigoted stance.
defensivebackhair
1000% this. We have real progressive candidates but they lose in the primaries because AIPAC and other superpacs overshadow them. A lot of so-called democrats are against ranked choice and other truly progressive solutions that would give voters more power
MeestowKitty
Hell, I'm still convinced Maxwell was a Mossad asset who "groomed" Epstein to do all the shit he did, to ensnare the wealth of the world so they would be pliable for Israeli influencing. Leave it to Israel to take the WORST of the anti-semitic stereotypes of the last few centuries and literally make some of them true.
elwaln8r
Well, maybe we can start asking how she got caught in her own submarine. They mentioned it when she was arrested, then everybody stopped talking about it
MeestowKitty
Wait, what? Source?
elwaln8r
I guess I was wrong. She had a submarine and a license to drive it, but wasn’t caught in it.
cytherians
Dershowitz confessed to a Mossad connection. And some believed he was grooming Epstein to be a Mossad agent. Maxwell's father was long suspected of having ties to Mossad.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Maxwell
WarThunderLeakedMySpecs
It would also go a ways toward explaining why she’s still alive after he was killed.
enotrevo
Given who her dad was, I think the same.
ImmaCatImmaSexyCat
That Maxwell thing seems pretty plausible and I suspected the same for a while. Glad to know I'm not alone.
cytherians
All one need do is consider her father. It's no coincidence that she hooked up with Epstein, who was also connected to Dershowitz--another Mossad connection.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Maxwell