DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — When Ellie, a British-Iranian living in the United Kingdom, tried to call her mother in Tehran, a robotic female voice answered instead.
“Alo? Alo?” the voice said, then asked in English: “Who is calling?” A few seconds passed.
“I can’t heard you,” the voice continued, its English imperfect. “Who you want to speak with? I’m Alyssia. Do you remember me? I think I don’t know who are you.”
Ellie, 44, is one of nine Iranians living abroad — including in the U.K and U.S. — who said they have gotten strange, robotic voices when they attempted to call their loved ones in Iran since Israel launched airstrikes on the country a week ago.
They told their stories to The Associated Press on the condition they remain anonymous or that only their first names or initials be used out of fear of endangering their families.
Five experts with whom the AP shared recordings said it could be low-tech artificial intelligence, a chatbot or a pre-recorded message to which calls from abroad were diverted.
It remains unclear who is behind the operation, though four of the experts believed it was likely to be the Iranian government while the fifth saw Israel as more likely.
Only the second most terrifying story I’ve read today
Is Iran responsible for what Hamas does with the weapons and munitions they supply them?
Is the US responsible for what Israel does with the weapons and munitions they supply them?
Do you have the same answer for both of these questions?
I’m not the person you’re replying to, but I’m genuinely curious to understand your point of view.
For what it’s worth, my personal answer to those questions is the same for both questions, I think - “mostly”.
I think the US is ultimately the one to blame for the vast majority of conflict around the world, as they’ve been destabilising fledgling democracies, installing puppet governments, supplying tons of weapons, assassinating leaders, generally manipulating and bullying many countries for many decades. In general I think the US is the world’s biggest bully, and has a ton of rich people who profit from war, and the middle east has been one of their many warmongering playgrounds for a long time, sadly.
However, I do also think both Iran and Israel are really shitty, for many reasons - from what I’ve seen as an outsider who has never been to either place, both countries seem to have a long standing, deep rooted racially motivated hatred towards one another, and both are very willing and eager to use force and start wars. Not to mention the variety of human rights abuses in both countries.
So basically I think “everyone sucks here”, but I do think the US is ultimately responsible for most of the conflict. They’ve been meddling in Iran for decades, and Israel has been essentially an extension of the US’s usual bullying for decades, unfortunately accelerated by Netanyahu’s excitement to escalate and expand their territory through genocide and settlement, supported by US and various other western countries’ military supplies…
I’ve seen a few of your messages recently and it seems like you’ve got a lot of anger, but I’m confused about who it’s directed at and why 😅
Would you be willing to explain your point of view on the conflict, or link me to a post where you’ve already explained it?
I’m not angry… are you sure you’re not angry?
I have concerns that people on this site where everyone is winding each other up with stochastic terrorism talk universally agreeing that certain countries are evil (and some posts indicate some believe everyone in these countries are evil too). There’s a lot of dehumanizing Israelis, and I’ve met few Israelis in my travels, perfectly normal people to talk to and have a beer with or whatever. Israelis aren’t evil colonizers, they’re people born in an area where a lot of people around them hate them for exiting in that area.
Well it takes two to tango doesn’t it? Well there’s a lot to untangle about this, it’s the Middle East shit’s always complicated.
For the Iran conflict… kinda. But Iran has responsibility too. In his first term, Trump cancelled the agreement that Obama made with Iran. Countries don’t declare war but they give signals like cancelling treaties and start making ultimatums. Trump did all that in his first term. But the thing with Trump is, he’s an idiot. So Trump essentially declared war on Iran and then… didn’t do the war. And then he assassinated an Iranian General which is an act of war. And then didn’t have a war.
There’s levels of stupid to unpack here. First it would be stupid for the US to go to war with Iran as long as they were following the treaty, which all reports indicate they were. But if you make all the moves to start a war, you’re kinda committed and it’s stupid to not have a war after you committed to it. So Trump created a big mess there.
So it’s kinda strange to assign blame to the US because it was all Trump’s incompetence. But I guess Trump was and is the President, so I guess the US (Trump) is responsible for making a mess of a diplomatic agreement that the US (Obama) made with Iran. That sounds so stupid without indicating the Presidents, but here we are. I can’t stress enough how much of an idiot Trump has been. The US doesn’t have a cohesive foreign policy anymore.
But we can’t ignore Iran’s responsibility in this. They have been supporting a lot of terrorist organizations, including Hamas which massacred Israeli villages, took hostages to Gaza forcing Israel into a ground war in a densely populated urban environment. Hamas tactics are designed to maximize Palestinian civilian casualties in attempt to foment hatred toward Israel. Hamas won the propaganda war, though they’ll probably be destroyed along with a significant part of Gaza. But but they successfully spread of Israel so that’s a win?
So Hamas is responsible for the Israel-Hamas war. Hamas is Iran’s proxy, so Iran is complicit in that. And that brings us back to the Israel-Iran conflict.
So Iran is the ultimate source of all of this suffering and destruction. Throughout the region. So does that justify a war on Iran? Maybe maybe not.
But there’s more… Iran has many times officially stated they want to wipe Israel of the map. So they’ve very publicly declared they want to be an existential threat. And there’s been indication from the UN Atomic monitoring agency that Iran has been hiding things in their nuclear program, not answering questions about things and enriching more uranium than the level they agreed to limit themselves to. They also announced they were going to start testing a missile capable of carrying a 2 ton warhead to Israel.
So whether or not the Hamas war justifies Israel going to war with Iran, all of the nuclear stuff does. This is life or death for Israel, if a country that’s said they want to wipe you off the map gets the capability to do so? They can’t allow that to happen.
So Iran is also responsible for this war. Iran’s proxies attacked Israel, the threats of wiping Israel off the map, the nuclear stuff, all of that means there will be a war.
So I guess in summary:
Trump could have NOT cancelled the Treaty. Trump could have NOT assassinated the general. Iran could have NOT supported terrorist groups. Iran could have NOT threatened to wipe Israel off the map. Iran could have NOT done all the the nuclear stuff.
But they did do those things. So there’s sheer incompetence from Trump and a lot of incompetence and horrible actions by Iran and it’s proxies that all added up to a war.
But most people on these threads just reduce all of this complexity down to Israel=bad, US=bad, Iran=innocent victim of the bad guys. It’s really a mix of incompetence and hatred of Israel that’s caused so much destruction. Sure Israel has done some bad things with the settlements, but the level of hatred feels like it stems from a lifetime of indoctrination under fascist rule. Hatred of Israel hasn’t resulted in anything good for Palestinians and it hasn’t done any good for Iranians. I know it’s a problem for some Muslim sects for Jews to be living where they’re living, but at certain point… just release the hostages and accept that Israel has a right to exist. Israel has been convinced to withdraw settlements, but it’s hard to convince them to concede any ground when everyone around them are trying kill them.
I think a Palestinian non-violent resistance movement would be successful in establishing a Palestinian state. Does it really look like a violent movement is being successful?
But a lot of people are acting like elementary school shitheads constantly egging on their classmates to fight. Violence obviously isn’t working for Palestinians, how many of them have to die before everyone realizes that? It feels like people think Palestinians exist only to be cannon fodder just for their sick games.
Thanks for taking the time to reply! I’m definitely not angry, I personally think all of these countries suck and it’s none of my business really so there’s no emotion in it for me, I’m just curious to understand where people are coming from when they post inflammatory / heated messages.
For what it’s worth, I definitely don’t think Iran is any better than Israel overall - they’ve both done pretty awful things over the years. I just think Iran is slightly more of a victim of the US (starting with the 1953 coup) whereas Israel has always had unconditional support from the US. When you’re talking about a war-hungry country with the worlds largest military, that’s a big deal.
I’ve just asked this prompt to an unbiased LLM and read through the responses, would love to hear your take on the below and if there’s anything you disagree with / think is false in it’s responses:
“throughout the last few decades, in all of the conflict in the middle east, has Iran been more of a bully or a victim? and, how much of the conflict in the middle east, including anything with Iran or Israel, has been ultimately caused by the US (directly or indirectly)? please try to remain unbiased in your response, I’m interested in plain facts as much as possible (even though I know I’m asking a subjective question)”
LLM response here; I know it’s a lot of text but it’s super informative, IMO worth a read and I’d love to hear your response if you do read it! https://gist.github.com/beveradb/d35beffc4f26299e24c34fb8889fbb8e
No, because I’m sane. How much do you get paid for this? I’m an insufferable piece of shit willing to tell insane lies for no reason, and looking for work. Or, I mean I’ve got a friend who is.
Hamas is justifiably resisting a violent occupation. Also, the US has been participating far more directly in the apartheid and genocide than just supplying munitions.
We’re below the fold here, so nobody’s seeing this but people who agree with you and things that are not people.
You really are a master of defending the indefensibly monstrous. Not well, but in such a way as to piss literally everyone off and insult every living thing almost separately!
It’s cool, take your time in answering the questions. Critical thinking can be difficult for those that haven’t had a lot of practice with it. There’s no time limit to answer the questions, and the third question is rhetorical, so don’t worry about that one.
This is beautiful.
Your trolling is a thing of beauty. I’m learning so much about how to come off as an irrational piece of shit.
Thanks! Have read Jonathan Swift’s “A Modest Proposal”?
The trick is to figure out a way that forces people to actually think about an issue. People hate thinking!
But it’s really important for people to think about things. In case you haven’t noticed, a lot of things in the world are going in a bad way and too many people are on autopilot just quoting bullshit from the internet. Not good to let algorithms think for you.
Oh. Have you ever tried that yourself?
Maybe you should try living up to hus example?
Yes, Iran is responsible for supplying weapons to Palestinians in their legitimate right of violent defense against an occupying force. Don’t you like international law or what?
Yes, the US is responsible for keeping the weapon deliveries to a genocidal apartheid state.
Are you, by any chance, trying to somehow equate Israeli genocidal violence to Palestinian militant defence against a genocidal occupying force?
So Iran is complicit in massacring villages and taking hostages on October 7. Do you think masscring villages is not an act of war?
No I don’t equate massacring entire villages(what Hamas did) with taking military action to free hostages taken by terrorists (what Israel is doing).
I just love western logic that decries killing civilians as terrorism when one side does it, but rationalizes the same act when the other side does it in an efficient, mechanized way with orders of magnitude more death and destruction.
We’re below the fold here. There are no undecideds looking, just people with hearts and one insane or well paid antisemitic-as-fuck protocols larp fanboy.
It’s like how there’s between someone being killed in an accident and someone being murdered. Intent is a factor.
If you target civilians and kill civilians with the goal to terrorize a population, then you’re terrorist. If you target a military asset with the goal to defeat an enemy fighting force then you’re taking a military action even if you accidentally kill civilians.
And no, wars are not supposed to fair. It’s not a sport with rules and referees to make sure everything is fair both sides. This is real life not a Call of Duty game. If you’re fighting against a superior military force you’re not being brave, you’re just getting a lot of people killed for nothing.
Non-violent resistance has a higher probability of success and fewer people die even if it fails. That’s the path to a Palestinian state the violence of Hamas has been a complete failure. That should be obvious.
Nothing Hamas has done has improved anything for Palestinians. They just killed a lot of people and got Gaza destroyed.
Terrorists are bad.
This is the part where genocidal freaks, like yourself, claim that Israel, and the US, don’t target civilians. Got it. That is of course a laughably inaccurate characterization of US and Israeli policy.
I also love it when the people with all the power proclaim the wonders and efficacy of peaceful resistance. How convenient for the entrenched power. I’m tempted to call out the origin of the United States, which was violent resistance to an oppressive regime. Funny how we find that story inspiring, but deride anybody else’s struggle to escape our own oppression.
It’s not a person. It can’t be reasoned with.
When you look at Gaza does that indicate that violent resistance is super successful?
You’ve been reading too much stochastic terrorism stuff.
You mean that time some slave masters wrote some pretty words about freedom and equality and absolutely nothing changed for the slaves they owned?
I have some ancestors that had to flee political persecution during the American Revolution. When they said they tarred and feathered the “traitors” do you buy that bullshit? The slave masters that founded the United States eliminated political dissent using public torture. Oppressors always label any dissenters to be traitors. Donald Trump does this too.
You were indoctrinated into believing a fairy tale about the foundation of your country so you’d worship “founding father” the same way they worship “big brother” in 1984. The American Revolution changed who had power, it didn’t change anything about the lives of regular people, and certainly didn’t improve anything for the slaves.
I’m from Canada and the founding principle of my country was “we have to work together or the Americans will invade us.” We have more rights than Americans Do you want to guess how many revolutions and civil wars we had to get to where we are?
Most people couldn’t vote in America for much of it’s history. Tell me which revolution resulted in women having the right to vote in America? What revolution ended segregation?
Stochastic terrorists have told you a narrative that violence always works and non-violence always fails. History isn’t on your side unless you read it from the point of view of wealthy land owning slave masters. If your goal is to increase rights and freedoms, non-violence is more effective. If your goal is to get power so you can oppress people then sure, I guess violence works for that.
You are aware Hamas tortures people to death if they speak out against them, right? I guess you just want to always side with the oppressive assholes of history that use violence to gain power.
Oh, I forgot about the time that nonviolent protest ended slavery in the US. Sorry ‘bout that.
In the British Empire, slavery was ended by the abolitionist movement, which involved a lot of labour unions. The British Empire ended slavery a generation earlier than the US did, this was accomplished through non-violent resistance. The British Empire went from the biggest slaving empire in history to being the biggest anti-slaving empire in history. The ending of Amistad where the Royal Navy is detroying the slaver base? That happened… except it was many different bases they destroyed. The Royal Navy put an end to the international slave trade.
It’s weird how history is isn’t it? The British Empire was both evil and good at the same time. Seems things are more complicated than nation good or nation bad.
I forgot to mention before, that one “oppression” that your founding fathers chaffed at was the fact that Britain had treaties they made with indigenous people that fought on their side in the French and Indian war. This meant the 13 colonies were prohibited from expanding westward. Your great Founding Fathers fought for the “freedom” to genocide Indigenous people so they could expand their slave plantations westwards. Great guys!
Anyway after slaver was abolished in the British Empire, an abolitionist movement started growing in the US. One Abraham Lincoln was in that movement and he got elected President. His goal as President wasn’t to end slavery immediately though, but to move the country in a direction where it would eventually end… a generational kind of transition.
Southern states didn’t agree with this government policy so the violently rebelled with the cause of slavery forever. As the war went through the democratic process of what was left of the US, they made the Emancipation Proclamation. When the South was defeated they were forced to end slavery. Abraham Lincoln was shot by a violent protester.
Of course it didn’t really end there. Jim Crow laws segregation and all. But those were put to an end by the Civil Rights movement, a non-violent resistance movement.
So no, slavery was not ended by a violent resistance movement. There was a significant violent resistance against the ending of slavery though.
Are you sure you’re not pro-slavery? You seem to always be picking examples of violent resistance movements that were pro-slavery.
Sorry but history just isn’t on your side on this. Violent movements tend to have violent people leading them. When they “succeed” you have a country being run by violent people. This isn’t likely to lead to good results for the people living in those countries. It certainly hasn’t had a good result for the people of Gaza having violent people leading them, has it?
So you agree the place the protocols LARPers live should be returned to the Hamas people?
The way you apply labels to people to dehumanize them makes it difficult for me to understand what you’re even asking. Like do you call all Palestinians “Hamas people”?
Only when im talking to a protocols larper. That’s what you guys always seem to call them.
Ah so you dehumanize both Jews and Palestinians. So you’re a white supremacist type of antisemite.
Slow clap
This is a masterpiece. Thank you sir.
Most were deliberately killed by their own diaper forces to create what they themselves called ‘our 9/11’
Deliberately ignored the warnings and moved that shitty festival in a terribly dangerous place next to the open air prison, not unlike what the US did with Pearl Harbor.
Furthermore these monsters always lie. There was no massacring, even the
hostagescaptured coloniser scum (many of them also diaper forces) are still alive unfortunately.Except the ones the colonisers shot while waving a white flag 😂 and the many bombed by the coloniser terrorists.
Hamas are saints compared to these ziomonsters.
The genocide in Gaza makes me furious but now seeing shitrahell being hit really hard warms my heart.
Go cry somewhere else hasbara clown.
Enjoy:
https://edition.cnn.com/2025/06/22/world/video/iranian-missile-strike-on-tel-aviv-nic-robertson-vrtc
There’s plenty more but can’t not show this cunt and the anti-semitic pole the entire world is laughing at:
https://packaged-media.redd.it/0aqs8os2vg8f1/pb/m2-res_586p.mp4?m=DASHPlaylist.mpd&v=1&e=1750629600&s=a7a27540386c36180eeffe6c1735abe08c1d26c3
🤣 😂 🤣
No, it’s not an act of war, it’s violent resistance against an occupying force. As much as you probably believe Ukrainians have a right to defend themselves from Russian invasion, more so do Palestinians.
Bullshit genocidal propaganda. No wonder you get banned, you Nazi scum
Sorry but I can’t trust your judgement on matters concerning genocide when you believe massacring villages is a legitimate act.
Go to hell, zionazi
Edgy!
How much do you get paid for this? It seems like an opportunity.
But fundamentally you consider massacring villages a bad thing… when some people do it.
Wait what? Since when? No. What?
How could massacring villages be bad? We need to exterminate the brutes, so massacring villages is definitionally good!
It’s always a bad thing. It’s a bad thing that civilians die just because they happen to live in a building that a terrorist is firing at soldiers from. It’s also bad when soldiers die. In fact, it’s bad when anyone dies.
War is just an all around bad thing it seems. Holding hostages is also a bad thing. Maybe Hamas should release the hostages so the war can end?
Have you ever seen any Israeli state media? You genuinely, delusionally think that “rEleaSIng tHe hOSTagEs” would stop the full throated ethnic cleansing currently occurring? I guess you think that the West Bank is also holding hostages while they bulldoze it?
If whatever remaining hostages that the IDF hasn’t killed themselves as collateral damage were released then Israel would stop gunning down starving refugees in food aid lines. Of course they would.
They’re being paid, dear.
This is a pretty good argument for turning the protocols larper occupied territory to glass. You’re being overpaid, babe.
To be fair I think massacring villages is a legitimate act when the protocols LARPers do it. I know that’s how they level up. And grinding for levels is good! It’s like self improvement!
Are you making it about Hamas now?
Palestine has the right to defend itself from colonisers, anything Hamas does is pisrahells fault. FAFO Go cry somewhere else
Honey you’re not arguing with a person and this comment is below the fold. You can drop it.
It can’t hear you
Yes to both.