They are just declaring their neighbors illegitimate and marching in like Putin.
He’s technically correct according to some schools of international politics.
But he’s saying this to casually connect Iran to a declaration of war on Israel. In all that blab he casually infers Hezbollah is an Iranian military unit and it declared war on October 8th. Which creates the question of a casus belli against Iran.
This is a propaganda technique where stuff like this is mentioned in passing by a bunch of different people. Our full attention is on the idea that he’s delegitimizing the surrounding countries. But that other bit slips past and if we hear something over and over without questioning it we can actually internalize it.
So that’s kind of scary to think about.
Reminds me of something.
I always say it’s wild when politician says “Jew has the right to a jewish state” coming from countries that work hard to separate church from state, and the country behave exactly as ISIS.
There is a lot to critizize abt israel, but to say it “behave[s] exactly as ISIS” is just disengenous.
“We will draw the line at Benin, because let’s not get ahead of ourselves.”
What’s that. Serious question
ISIS map, edited by them from a screenshot of the game Victoria 2.
Thank you
I love how reporting things like this generates downvotes on the topic even though OP took the time to paste actual screenshots proving it to be true.
I downvoted it because it’s not Onion-y as described in community rule 4:
would make people who see the headline think, “That has got to be a story from The Onion, America’s Finest News Source.”
I mean call me crazy but I feel like a minister from a country trying to justify why he doesn’t see internationally recognized countries as actual countries is pretty Onion-y to me. The icing on top is that it’s coming from a minister in a country known for illegally stealing land and re-defining their own borders against international law.
country doing more of what country has been doing
No, not particularly Onioney.
I get where you’re coming from but if we follow that logic then majority of the posts on this community about Trump and his MAGA fanatics would be disqualified. Just because ridiculous is the norm for these people doesn’t mean we stop calling it out.
tbf, Trump says a lot more random, off-the-wall shit than Israel does. Israel isn’t very random, much more cold and calculated. Not very satire-like.
Israel isn’t very random, much more cold and calculated. Not very satire-like.
That’s not what the purpose of this community though. The purpose is to have headlines that can pass as a satirical one from The Onion at first glance. To me this fits the definition.
If you say so. To me that requires an expectation that this would be unusual, something that would catch the eye as notable, instead of just being perfectly in-line with the norms of the time.
It’s not the country’s he’s talking about. It’s the little areas of remote territory along Israel’s borders, that while technically part of those countries, they don’t resemble a country at all. There is no legit government. There is no law enforcement. There are no courts of law. They are essentially unincorporated territories held variously by local militias and tribes.
If Lebanon and Syria want to claim this territory as part of their country, they have to actually make it a part of a country, bring it under the jurisdiction of their law. Be legitimate leadership. Work towards the betterment of the people whose charge they claim.
Israel is not going to let it be surrounded by lawless territory that Iran uses to stage attacks against Israel, certainly not while Iran is over there trying to cook up nuclear material to make dirty bombs.
If you took even fifteen seconds to actually listen to the argument that’s being made, instead of only half, understanding it and rushing to an emotional judgment, you’d realize it doesn’t sound like The Onion at all. It’s an argument made by people all over the world, especially as to Gaza, for example, and, guess what? It’s a legit argument.
Iran, Iraq, and Lebanon, and sort of Syria, are not quite failed States, because they do still have a seat of power within their countries, and they do project that power to a limited extent. But they do not project it into these lawless border territories. And so when you have essentially gangs and terror cells, pretending to be legitimate political entities, how many suicide bombings, rocket attacks, and mass shootings must your neighbors abide before they bring their law to your territories? FAFO.
The historical term for such territories is irredenta, meaning unredeemed or unclaimed.
If they’re not a country you’d have to say that Somalia, Ethiopia, Sudan, Myanmar, Yemen and so on are also not coutcries. Country is a country if it’s internationally recognized as a country which is why Somaliland and Western Sahara are generally not considered countries but Lebanon is.
Just because a country doesn’t think another is not does not justify an invasion.
True. they certainly were countries.
When it’s your neighbor, though, and they launch 1,000 rockets at you every month, your assessment of the situation will probably be most up to date. The land is your border, after all. And if lawlessness spills over, That certainly can be cause for just war.
It’s not the country’s he’s talking about. It’s the little areas of remote territory along Israel’s borders, that while technically part of those countries, they don’t resemble a country at all. There is no legit government. There is no law enforcement. There are no courts of law. They are essentially unincorporated territories held variously by local militias and tribes.
Every wonder why? Here’s a little hint:
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/longform/2024/4/15/mapping-israel-lebanon-cross-border-attacks
Notice the number of attacks by Israel is over 5 times the amount compared to Hezbollah. This is exactly how Israel operates. Destabilize a region forcing the inhabitants to leave then move in and claim it’s part of their territory. Then once the actual native population try to have it back, they cry victim and massacre them in the name of self defense. They’re already trying to settle areas in Gaza and the West Bank. It’s not a coincidence this statement appeared just as Israel launches the deadliest attack in Lebanon in the past 15 years and tells them to leave or face death.
If Lebanon and Syria want to claim this territory as part of their country, they have to actually make it a part of a country, bring it under the jurisdiction of their law. Be legitimate leadership. Work towards the betterment of the people whose charge they claim.
The Golan Heights would like a word with you.
Israel is not going to let it be surrounded by lawless territory that Iran uses to stage attacks against Israel, certainly not while Iran is over there trying to cook up nuclear material to make dirty bombs.
Love your casual use of the word lawless as if that indicates a lack of morality and a justification to settle territory that belongs to another nation.
If you took even fifteen seconds to actually listen to the argument that’s being made, instead of only half, understanding it and rushing to an emotional judgment, you’d realize it doesn’t sound like The Onion at all. It’s an argument made by people all over the world, especially as to Gaza, for example, and, guess what? It’s a legit argument.
I’m not being emotional and claiming a country doesn’t exist or it’s territories don’t belong to it is not a legit argument. Don’t try and gaslight the situation here.
I ran Iraq and Syria, are not quite failed States, because they do still have a seat of power within their countries, and they do project that power to a limited extent. But they do not project it into these lawless border territories. And so when you have essentially gangs and terror cells, pretending to be legitimate political entities, how many suicide bombings, rocket attacks, and mass shootings must your neighbors abide before they bring their law to your territories? FAFO.
You ever stop to consider why these countries are struggling to retain control? Countries like Iraq that got decimated and completely destabilized by the US under the false pretense of WMD’s? Each country you listed can have it’s destabilization traced back to foreign interference by foreign countries like the US and Israel. Destabilizing an entire region then calling it “lawless” and justifying the theft of the land for your own benefit is not a valid argument. This approach should be shamed and ridiculed just as we are doing here.
Lol.
No. The men that run these places want to live like it’s the year 800. They struggle because they govern by assassination and religious fiat. More power to them; world needs all types. Really just two rules, though: don’t try and export any of that bullshit or force it on anyone else, and at least, make a good faith effort to take care of the basic needs of the people: some public or subsidized utilities and infrastructure for food, water, and energy, some form of a healthcare system, and some system of law that’s at least capable of protecting human rights of the people, capable of policing corruption and conflicts of interest. Far right, extreme religious monarchies and dictatorships, have a real hard time with both rules; especially extremists don’t wear uniforms and who use women and kids as cannon fodder. If they can’t project any legitmate justice and peace to the territory they claim, and it gets overrun with armed religious psychopaths on a pan-national religious conquest, that’s fair game for military action.
Like, it’s not trespassing to go onto your neighbor’s land, right up to the front door, break it down with an axe while screaming, and then blast everyone inside with water, if’n their house is on fire and spreading to yours. This is natural law, no?
And there we have it folks. This is what actual evil looks like. Individuals like this one who dehumanize people all for being born less fortunate than them and using it to justify atrocities being committed. It’s legitimately sad and pathetic that people like this exist.
Blah blah blah everything I don’t like is evil.
No, these are the evil people, violent religious extremists. Launching thousands of rockets a month indiscriminately at civilians. That’s the atrocity. Spending all that money on rockets while their own people are malnourished and uneducated because every every institution and natural resources was converted to instrumentalities of Iranian state-sponsored terrorism. Grow up.
As long as the people don’t get killed by bombs, your fine with how they live their lives; no civil rights, no human rights, no legit legal system, no social safety nets, rule by assassination. Go over to to these places you are about so deeply and suggest they have an election. See if you don’t literally get stoned to death for infidelity to the word of an imaginary god. That’s evil.
It’s not millions of people living and dying, generation after generation, knowing nothing but hopelessness and anger, wrought on them by their own deranged leadership, and their own deranged world view. That, you’e fine with continuing, just as long as you don’t have to see it in the news. I think that makes you not just evil, but also ignorant and shortsighted. Childish really.
I would agree with you if he would be talking about the border regions alone. But he is (at least in the translations), speaking about the whole countries not being a country because of those border regions. And that is stupid and Oniony.
Border regions not being under the control of the central government is a legitimate thing to criticize the countries for, but not a reason to call them not countries. Otherwise Ukraine would also not be a country by that definition, since it doesn’t control all their regions currently.
I’m not a translator but I’m not going to read into that one noun form. The next sentence refers to certain areas within their borders, and everyone knows exactly where he’s talking about. For the last year there’s been 1,000 rockets a month launched indiscriminately at Israel. Not hard to step out where they’re coming from, right? Before that, it was dozens, hundreds, or sometimes also tousands, months to month.
I’m sure you can find some maps of territory held by terrorists in the region and which countries sponsor and ally with them, and which ones designate them as such. Terrorists don’t get to have a state.
That is fair, although if you read some of the newest Onion articles it definitely sounds like them.
It’s pretty close to that.
I mean I’d believe you if you told me it’s satire.
those statements don’t prove anything, they just express his opinion on why those Arab states shouldn’t be considered countries, which is disputed by the overwhelming number of other countries who recognize those governments.
Israel does have a problem that a good chunk of their neighbors deny their right to exist. I’m not smart enough to know how to solve the problem, but I do know the solution is not “No, U”.
Whether or not he proves anything is irrelevant. This is a minister of a country coming out and saying other countries don’t technically exist because he thinks so (and his logic is pretty dam stupid as well). It’s a pretty ridiculous and weird stance to take.
damn, why do my neighbors dislike me? it totally can’t be years and years of apartheid, annexations, conquest, and targeted destabilization
Welp, regardless of the very real issues in these countries, this is exactly the kind of rhetoric that precedes an invasion, as it did when Putin started publicly questioning Ukraine’s status as a country. This helps cement my assessment that Israel is going to go for a larger land grab with the pretext of building a buffer zone for the protection of its citizens.
Israel be going down down to nazi town really quick. You know what they say, you either die a hero…
I dont know when they were a hero. The IDF was designated terrorist organization from the start.
But you can make a moral argument fot their terrorism against (former) Nazis in (more or less) hiding in my opinion.
still going? i thought they made it when they started spouting blood and soil, 14 words, “Gaza animals”, etc…
The eventual outcome of the slippery slope that comes from justifying colonial interests that were legitimized in cooperation with the Nazis under the Haavara Agreement under the vise of religion.
They’re not going to stop land grabbing…
As long as they think America has their back. They’ll keep going.
And Biden has spent over 50 years saying he’ll always support them no matter what.
That geriatric old fuck needs out of office now. We can’t wait for January and he’s clearly lost all his marbles or he’d be the candidate.
There is real life shit going on and Biden has shown time and time again. He’s just not capable of handling it
I mean it is the same with Putin, saying Ukraine is not a real country, he is not going to stop at Ukraine. Something similar might happen in Armenia too, things are becoming ugly.
Biden is stuck with what life was like 70 years ago. Russia was the bad guys then so he treats them as the bad guys now at least.
But he’s gone on record saying his support of Israel is due to a promise he made his dad when he was six years old.
He’s just flat out not looking at things logically, it’s a joke that we’re still pretending he’s capable of running the country when he’s obviously not
I am honestly not sure if it is Biden’s decision after I saw how cooked his brains were. More likely he just read whatever his party/vice president decided.
Sad part is Kamala or Trump won’t stop supporting Israel either.
Americans need to vote 3rd party but they never will do it.
Like Putin sais about soviet countries!? good to know israel is not the bad guy s/
Does Israel really have a monopoly on power? Don’t they have huge numbers of settler militia types out there attacking Palestinians and driving them from their lands?
It is the US that has the military power. Israel has already tried going into Lebanon before and failed, so I think if they do it they must be pretty confident that America will come to their aid.
They really really want to draw the US and Iran into it.
As I understand it, some of the settlers have a little military training, but mostly they are as you would expect, very uneducated poor people from very remote places who don’t know anything else, and that’s on both sides of the borders. Too bad Israel has a far-right government in charge that won’t do anything to stop these illegal settlements. I hope they get thrown out in the next election.
you forgot the part where they have IDF assistance and protection when they kill Palestinians…
?
Too bad Israel has a far-right government in charge that won’t do anything to stop these illegal settlements. I hope they get thrown out in the next election.
There is zero hope the far right leadership gets voted out in any of the territory at issue except Israel, so that’s worth nurturing, not smothering in its crib.
Under Trump the US for the first time ever declared many of the settlements LEGAL. Just another of the ways Trump contradicted long-standing foreign policy.
US supports Israel to a ridiculous deglee, rest of the world say they’re a war crime. Only two countries in the UN voted to make food not a human right, guess which.
I don’t find it ridiculous at all to prevent a fledgling democracy, the only one for a thousand miles in any direction, and our ally, from being overrun by radical pan-Islamism, which is antithetical to human and civil rights, and an ideology that needs to be left in the trash heap of history. Literally has no place in modern society. In fact, I find the future of the world’s democracies to be closely tied to the good fortune of all mankind
Check the signatories to South Africa’s complaint to the UN. With the exception of South Africa and Ireland, every one of them is a far right theocracy with either a dictator or monarchy in charge, zero recognition for basic human rights. Check the complaint: filled of circular reasoning and citations to unsourced Al Jazeera articles. See if they can prove up their claims when the evidentiary trial take place. Got a whole long list of unverified allegations from Qatari state run media and practically nothing else.
Not really onion-y.
Lebanon literally has a foreign paramilitary group with considerabily political power controlling part of it’s territory, so they are arguable not a fully sovereign state. And in the end statehood is not a clear definied concept and what really matter is recognition from other states. A state not recognition another for poltical reasons is not really something strange or absurd. That’s pretty much the norm.
Can’t belive i had to scroll to the bottom to find this.
Nothing he said is actually wrong, just missed that recognition is also a big part of it.
It is not the norm, it is becoming the norm. Nothing to shrug about, it is quite dystopian.
And how is Hezbollah not a local military? As far as I know, they have existed before the Iranian revolution.It is not the norm, it is becoming the norm.
How so? This was much more common in the past. It’s become much less of the norm since we have international instituations like the UN.
Nothing to shrug about, it is quite distopian.
right, but this isn’t [email protected]. And I don’t think it’s onion-y.
And how is Hezbollah not a local military? As far as I know, they have existed before the Iranian revolution.
They are funded by and acting in the interest of Iran. But it wouldn’t really change anything if they were local. It still means the government is only partially in control of the country.
How so? This was much more common in the past. It’s become much less of the norm since we have international instituations like the UN.
So it’s not the norm, it is becoming the norm. you answered it yourself.
right, but this isn’t [email protected]. And I don’t think it’s onion-y.
My comment is not the post, the post is onion-y
They are funded by and acting in the interest of Iran. But it wouldn’t really change anything if they were local. It still means the government is only partially in control of the country.
This makes no sense.
I think US oil interests might have a thing or two to say about declaring Iraq not a country.
The US could be in a leopards ate my face situation if Israel pursues that line of thought into taking destructive military actions in Iraq.
I think US oil interests might have a thing or two to say about declaring Iraq not a country.
More specifically, the US interest in the Suez Canal. This critical piece of intercontinental infrastructure must be secured in order to efficiently transport material within the Mediterranean Ocean and out to the Atlantic. Also a BFD if you’re moving military hardware through the region (like aircraft carriers).
Israel is a gun pointed at the neighboring states, intended to keep them in line. But if that gun keeps going off randomly, it no longer serves as a meaningful deterrent.
Nationalist Narcissism begins.
