Israel invests in defending their civilians with technology like Iron Beam.
In contrast the Gazan government strategically uses humans shields [2, 3] and despite this the majority of Palestinians still support starting this war by attacking civilians on Oct 7th [1]. Defense technology doesn’t help if you don’t want it unfortunately.
Hamas also has hundreds of miles of tunnels which civilians aren’t allowed to use.
To say that israel invests in defense is at least 1/4 untrue, since the US sends billions every year. The US gave them about 7b cash last year, which is around 1/4 of their defense budget, and doesn’t include things like stationing carriers nearby, or doing airstrikes on houthi blockades.
That the US contributes doesn’t take away from the billions Israel did and does invest. The US defense contractors also get a big chunk of that aid.
The US also gives similar levels of military aid to Egypt as well. The EU and US give billions to Ukraine.
Gaza also receives billions in aid; substantial amounts of which has been hihacked and looted. For example this lady summer the UN reported that 88% of their aid trucks in Gaza were looted [1].
> That the US contributes doesn’t take away from the billions Israel did and does invest
Actually it does? It takes about 1/4 away.
> The US also gives similar levels of military aid to Egypt as well. The EU and US give billions to Ukraine.
Yes, the US uses defense aid to further their own agenda internationally, and funnel public dollars into private hands.
> Gaza also receives billions in aid
Food, medical, and infrastructure aid is not the same thing as weapons.
> 88% of their aid trucks in Gaza were looted
Ok? This tells me that both food and food aid are in short supply, if people are willing to take it by force. If myself and my family was starving, i would hyjack food trucks too. Wouldn’t you?
>> That the US contributes doesn’t take away from the billions Israel did and does invest
> Actually it does? It takes about 1/4 away.
It literally does not. The way that every English speaker uses the word "invests" is exactly the opposite of this. If you're going to speak English, you use words as native speakers use them and you don't make up your own definitions.
There is no way any group other than Hamas could be operating at that scale. It's Hams taking the aid to use it to control the population. It's not like they were actually starving--Hamas never managed to find a legitimately starving person to point a camera at. Every single person they paraded in front of the cameras had medical issues that were the cause of their problems. Just go look inside a hospice, should we conclude they are starving people?
Reminder the UN said it could feed the millions in Gaza more than the 1200+ calories per person Israel was letting in. The UN at the same time only fed the 400,000 Sudan refugees 400 calories per person per day.
This doesn’t pass a basic plausibility test. It’s a war zone where food is super scarce and aid workers are there voluntarily. Between people wanting to feed their communities, and humanitarian aid workers who’ve already shown they are willing to risk life and limb, and gazan truckers with basically no other work, someone is going to be able to move goods for free or very cheap.
IPC had to ignore their own definition to declare a famine though. An actual famine involves at least 2 starvations per 10,000 people per day, among other requirements. According to Hamas' own data, Gaza was always several orders of magnitude short of that.
First, the IPC famine scale is a scale in phases, not a simple yes-no binary.
Second, yes there is a war going on - solid data is hard to come by. But that’s a lack of data, not a change in their criteria. You can read their full mortality analysis and reasoning starting on page 24 https://www.ipcinfo.org/fileadmin/user_upload/ipcinfo/docs/I...
The conclusion is:
>Considering the available evidence, and in line with
the IPC Guidance Note on Famine Classification,64
the FRC infers from the available data that mortality
thresholds for Famine have already been exceeded in
Gaza Governorate. Based on expert judgement, we also
conclude that the Famine thresholds for mortality have
not yet been crossed in Deir al-Balah or Khan Younis
governorates.
No goalposts moved. Based on the data we have, people are dying of malnutrition.
They made up that claim. Hamas never even claimed anywhere near the number of deaths that would comprise famine. And Hamas never managed to point their cameras at anyone starving for non-medical reasons. We have a very clear case of a dog not barking.
> To say that israel invests in defense is at least 1/4 untrue, since the US sends billions every year.
This is factually incorrect. The amount of money that the US gives Israel is completely and totally irrelevant to whether or not Israel also invests their own money in defense.
The fact that the US has a problem with foreign influence literally does not matter for the statement above.
To be clear, I don't agree with the GP's implied suggestion that Israel is more defensive than offensive, but making objectively incorrect statements is not a valid way to refute that.
> To say that israel invests in defense is at least 1/4 untrue, since the US sends billions every year.
That statement is completely false, and is very different than what you said just now.
If you're going to walk back your words because you were proven wrong, that's fine, but don't claim you're "rephrasing" when you're actually changing your claim.
I’m not walking back anything. I said something, you misunderstood, i clarified. I stand by the original wording, as i believe most people are be able to understand my meaning. At some point I have to assume willful misunderstanding on your part
OK, now you're just lying. In the parent thread you said:
> To say that israel invests in defense is at least 1/4 untrue, since the US sends billions every year.
You are clearly claiming that because Israel's defense budget isn't entirely their own spending, that that claim is not entirely true.
Then someone else responded:
> That the US contributes doesn’t take away from the billions Israel did and does invest
If that hadn't been your claim, then you would have agreed with this. But you didn't - you responded and doubled down and made it extremely clear that that was what you were saying[1]:
> Actually it does? It takes about 1/4 away.
Given how incredibly clear you were about your claims, the "revised" statement:
> The defensive and offensive capabilities of Israel is about 1/4 larger because of american tax dollars not their own spending.
...is objectively and factually different.
It's not me who's misunderstanding - given not only the repeated statements that reinforced exactly the same point, and other commentators interpreting it actually the same (because they can read) - it's you who are lying about your original words.
I am saying the same thing in every post I have made about this, and you’re getting tripped up by something and i can’t figure out what. Anyway, nothing more to say here.
usa aid is typically around $3b-$3.5b . 2024 higher aid is one off due to the war. also (unless i am wrong), good chunk of aid that Israel got from usa during war was in form of loans/guarantees for loans and such
Their military budget is wayyy up due to the war, so if you’re ignoring recent giving you should also be ignoring recent spending.
In 2020 their military budget was ~21b. In 2020 the US gave 3.8b - so 21%, or 1/5. My number was based on 2024 budget and spending, which is why i said 1/4, but you’re probably right that pre-war numbers are more accurate if we’re talking about their long term spending trends.
The 2021 budget framework for the "Ministry of Defense" includes an expenditure budget of NIS 62.357 billion, in addition to NIS 14.972 billion in income-contingent expenditure and authorization to commit in the amount of NIS 36.3 billion.
In 2022, the framework for the budget includes an expenditure budget of NIS 59.833 billion, in addition to NIS 15 billion in income-contingent expenditure and authorization to commit in the amount of NIS 42.9 billion.
Wish you’d included your source. I can’t find anywhere that says numbers that high for 2020 or 2021. NIS 62b is less than 20b USD so what I said, and it’s unclear what of those optional portions were actually spent.
> the Gazan government strategically uses humans shields
This just means Israel knows they're hitting women and children every time they send a bomb their way.
> the majority of Palestinians still support starting this war
Palestine isn't a democracy with well documented preferences. Israel is though, so why don't you say that a majority of Israelis are fine with the killing of women and children in Gaza?
elcritch, you're beating around the bush but strongly suggesting there's a reasonable justification (not just an explanation) for killing women and children if it suits someone's needs. Does this apply just to Israel killing people in Gaza or universally valid? Because I distinctly remember the US going to war over WMD that never existed. So elcritch, are you saying US women and children are fair game now?
> there's a reasonable justification (not just an explanation) for killing women and children if it suits someone's needs
The Law of Armed Conflict specifies exactly when it considers such a reasonable justification to exist, which is not "never". You don't get to plop down women and children in front of military installations and go "neener neener" like you're a child on the school playground.
Sure Eli, and I'm sure you're not biased at all, but when you find so many "reasonable" reasons to kill thousands and thousands of civilians, women and children included, and you never ask yourself any questions, there's nothing more anybody else needs to know about you.
The comparison writes itself and when it doesn't, you make it obvious. You wouldn't be the first person who finds justification for something like this.
1) The average death per bomb was less than 1. Strikes mostly hit things which had already been evacuated.
2) When human shields get hit we blame the side that put them in harm's way, not the side that harmed them. Just look at the criminal trials in police actions--a hostage dies when SWAT hits a place, the murder rap lands on the person who took the hostage even if it turns out to be a police bullet in the hostage.
And your note about WMD--said WMD existed. On paper. We read the paper, didn't realize it was underlings lying to Saddam.
> a hostage dies when SWAT hits a place, the murder rap lands on the person who took the hostage even if it turns out to be a police bullet in the hostage.
The murder wrap doesn't fall on the SWAT shooter even when they shoot completely unarmed, innocent people, in their own home. So all your example says is that SWAT gets gets a free pass for murder no matter what. All it takes is for someone to anonymously say "LorenPechtel is a terrorist, he's planning to blow up some children at this address right now" and your chances are slim.
In contrast the Gazan government strategically uses humans shields [2, 3] and despite this the majority of Palestinians still support starting this war by attacking civilians on Oct 7th [1]. Defense technology doesn’t help if you don’t want it unfortunately.
Hamas also has hundreds of miles of tunnels which civilians aren’t allowed to use.
1: https://www.pcpsr.org/en/node/1000#:~:text=The%20Trump%20Pla... 2: https://stratcomcoe.org/cuploads/pfiles/hamas_human_shields.... 3: https://www.fdd.org/analysis/2023/11/01/hamas-officials-admi...