No, you’re just entirely wrong. Iran is in fact committing both genocide and ethnic cleansing. Iran does it’s foreign policy through proxies, similar to Russia with Wagner, as it gives them plausible deniability when they face backlash. Iran isn’t exactly discrete with this either, they have an entire military branch called the Quds force that was specifically created and designed to conduct asymmetrical warfare. The Quds force has a very long and well documented history, where they fund, arm, train, and provide intelligence for proxies that are willing to do their bidding (source).

This isn’t exactly new either, they’ve have been doing this since the 80s. Iran’s major proxies in the Middle East have ALL conducted campaigns of genocide and ethnic cleansing against Druze, Baha’is, Christains, Jews, Mandaeans, Alawites, and Sunnis(especially Kurds). Here’s a very brief list of examples:

• Yemen - The Houthis have successfully ethnically cleansed the Jews out of the country (Source 1, source 2). Just go read what’s on their official flag, and that will tell you all you need to know (source). They’ve also been doing the same to Baha’is (source)

• Lebanon: Hezbollah has been trying to ethnically cleanse its Druze minority for decades now from massacring entire villages to launching rockets at Israel from Druze towns (so when Israel retaliates, it’ll land in their towns and kill them) to trying to create inter community violence and the list goes and on. (source). They’ve also been going after the Sunni minority in the country where they chase them out of their towns and neighborhoods (source)

• Syria: The Fatemiyoun Division and the Zaynabiyoun Brigade have been notorious in ethnically cleansing Sunni and Christian Syrians from their towns (Source 1)

• Iraq: Proxies like Kata’ib Hezbollah, Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq, Badr Organization, and a bunch of others are notorious for persecuting Sunnis, especially Kurds (Source 1, source 2). They also worked alongside ISIS to persecute Christians in the name of islam and also under the guise of anti-ISIS operations even though it was textbook ethnic cleansing(source)

• Iran: Things in Iran are so bad that the OHCHR literally put out a 30 page report as a part of their Independent International Fact-Finding Mission program that explains how Iran has been persecuting and ethnically cleansing Kurds, Baluchis, Ahwazi Arabs, Azeris, Baha’is, Yarsanis, Christians, Jews, and bunch of other minorities. In the report they found that the Mullah regime used excessive and often lethal force disproportionately against minorities in their provinces (including massacres like “Bloody Friday” in Zahedan in 2022). The regime conducted mass arrests targeting minority activists, journalists, and religious leaders, where a lot of them were kidnapped and denied due process. The victims suffered beatings, electric shocks, sexual violence, and psychological abuse, alongside threats to their families. Religious minorities such as Baha’is, for example, faced home raids, property confiscation, school expulsions, and arrests, while Yarsanis and Sunnis had restrictions on their religious practices. The Kurds and Baluchis even had their gatherings, festivals, and publications banned, and they’re being punished for speaking their languages in public. Jews in the country have also been rounded up, arrested, and punished in mass over baseless accusations of them being Israeli spies. The regime’s explicit goals for all of this is to make Iran more “islamic”, that’s textbook ethnic cleansing and cultural genocide (source).

I’m actually from Iraq and I come from a Mandaean background. I’ve literally seen this shit first hand, I’ve seen these very groups and how they have terrorized people, how they have cleansed entire communities, how they keep the country broken and corrupt, and how they carry out Iran’s interests. We used to be a community of around 60,000 in 2003, and now there’s only a couple of thousand left in the country at best. The Mandaean community is literally facing extinction now (source). Mandeans mostly lived in the south of the country where the population is mostly Shia and Arab, so the ethnic cleansing didn’t happen by the hands of ISIS or the Kurds or the Sunnis nor was it the Americans. After the 2003 war, Iran propped their proxies and they unleashed hell on the country, especially for its minorities where they were forced to flee, including my own family. My family went through hell and is now scattered all over the world and, and now some random Lemmy Mod is going to tell me that what family went through is misinformation? Give me a break.

Also, Israel is not the standard for what ethnic cleansing or genocide is, and it’s beyond ignorant to try to frame something a topic this complex and big around a single point of reference. Not only is it not the only ethnic cleansing going on right now, but by ignorantly dismissing other conflicts by not comparing to this one, you’re spitting on the victims and all the suffering they’re going through. If you want to voice some disagreement, sure, whatever, that’s your right. But what you’re doing here is enforcing your ignorant and misguided.

Refer to this comment:

https://lemmy.world/post/34062295/18801652

I’m not defending religion here. I’m with you on that. I’m just saying that it’s wrong to generalize an entire demographic for the action of a specific entity that has little to do with them. Israel =/= Jews or Judaism. Again, this is like judging all 1.9 billion muslims for the actions of the Taliban. It’s fine if you want to be critical of Judaism or islam or any other religion, it’s also fine if you want to be critical Israel or Afghanistan or any other state, but judging an entire demographic for the actions of a state just because of their religion? Now we’re starting to get too close to bigotry territory.