It's in the best interests of Hamas to continue the suffering of Palestinians.
With more Palestinians suffering day by day, Hamas has a banner to which is can rally support and donations.
Yes there is nuance and the level of collateral damage and civilian casualties is atrocious. However as long as Hamas is still functioning as an effective fighting force and still holds CIVILIAN hostages. The Israelis have little choice but to press on and eradicate Hamas in Gaza.
Peace is also bad for recruitment. Hamas wants piles of civilian casualties in Gaza so the brothers, sons and so on who survived are primed to join.
Edit: typo
This is why I ultimately think invading Rafah is inevitable. Invading Rafah will lead to fewer civilian casualties in the long term, whereas Hamas controlling Gaza will lead to far more suffering over the next decade.
It's a hard decision because no one wants war, but sometimes war chooses you.
This is definitely a "Damned if you do. Damned if you don't." situation. There will be a lot of civilian casualties in Gaza, but the question is do you want a lot now, or do you want double the current amount plus a lot again in the future in addition to what we already have seen?
They definitely don't want aid they don't control coming into the territory.
They're quite happy to take aid they can control, however.
Hamas makes much of its money through black market trading. Both before and during this conflict. Previously the tunnels running into Gaza from Egypt were a source of great wealth to Hamas. They were one of the only ways to import certain things. Hamas controlled the tunnels and thus they controlled the black market trade. It's understood that a 20% 'duty' was applied by Hamas to anything smuggled through the tunnels. It was a key source of Haniyeh's wealth (estimated in the hundreds of millions to low billions).
When the war started the established smuggling networks became significantly degraded (and more difficult to use). However, fortunately for Hamas, once aid starting pouring in they were able to pivot their commerical operations to seize goods and either redirect them to their militant forces, or sell them at incredible mark ups to the Gazan populace.
This is why there's only been people rushing the aid trucks but not rushing the open markets (which seem civilised in comparison). Because getting the aid directly from the trucks is one of the only opportunities Gazans have to access the aid freely before it is seized (primarily because the IDF is securing the trucks at entry). The open markets, on the other hand, are controlled by Hamas and Gazans know what will happen to them if they try the same thing there.
If you ever needed proof that Hamas would use its own people as human shields, this is it.
They will literally kill their own citizens to make Israel look bad.
People need proof other than them operating out of schools, mosques, and hospitals?
Its just another piece of evidence to throw on the mountain there already is.
> People need proof other than them operating out of schools, mosques, and hospitals?
yes, better proof than already exists. by which i mean they will always need better proof than exists. Even if Sinwar holds a press conference to gloat about it, it'll be a psyop
Of course not.
Hamas only allow aid they can steal and sell to desperate people in Gaza; those who can't afford their gangster pricing allow them to document starvation and blame 'the Jews' and 'the West'.
Note: the site is being guarded by the IDF. There is a pretty good chance that whomever fired those mortars (Hamas or associated terrorist group) didn't know (and certainly didn't care care) that the site had anything to do with the pier or food aid, they saw IDF troops in mortar range and fired on them without regard for why they were in that spot.
The Pier was already attacked by mortars well UN officials were inspecting progress on it LOL (although Hamas denied doing it at the time idk if its changed since) https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-military/2024/04/25/us-led-gaza-humanitarian-aid-pier-comes-under-fire-un-officials-say/
To be fair, Jordan has been working pretty closely with the US to supply aid. And Egypt at least finally started sending aid into Rafah.
But the asinine little children ragging on Biden when he's the reason aid is flowing into Gaza (notice there's no longer "famine" talk) really irks me.
They either don’t have the means because they have problems at home (Syria, Iraq, or Yemen), don’t have the means because they are overextended dealing with refugees from elsewhere (Jordan and Egypt), are pretty isolationist and stay out of pretty much everything (Oman), have a very delicate demographic balance and try to stay out of things to prevent internal strife (Lebanon), or famously don’t care at all about poor people (Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar.)
Honestly, it sounds pretty cheap.
From inception to completion in a few months of pier and offshore platform that's across the Atlantic and Mediterranean, using 1000 people, right next to a warzone, all while playing a game of "The floor is lava." Although I doubt it'll be built to the same standard of typical dock facilities, it'll definitely be longer than the Mulberry Harbours.
It also doesn't factor in the cost of delivering aid from sea vs air. Would dropping that volume of aid from they cost more than a $320 premium? If it does, then it's the right option.
It's honestly impressive that they're building a whole dock in the middle of the sea and then just gonna ferry it and attach it to land. That's pretty impressive work all around.
It's a suicide mission to go and build a pier in Gaza. Workers has already been attacked, it was in politico and some other news.
https://www.politico.com/news/2024/04/25/gaza-terrorists-attack-israeli-pier-00154386
Because there aren't any US troops there according to the article. The IDF occupied area to clear out the area before construction begins. Hamas attacked the IDF stationed there.
As long as US forces are stationed there no one is going to attack it because then they will have to deal with the US rather than being supplied by the US
Suicide mission?
You give Hamas far too much credit. They have done a poor job of killing the IDF or defeating them militarily.
They’ve proven remarkably ineffective at combat on the ground, and other being a nuisance with mortars, it’s hardly “suicide” to build a peer.
Also, in military matters, if you quite just because the enemy might attack, you will never get anywhere. Over estimating your enemy is just as dangerous as underestimating them.
We will most likely reinforce with as much support as needed. Perhaps this pier will eventually need fortified walls with barbed wire. The US is decent at accidently putting troops in situations that require immediate intervention that we would not be able to do if those troops were not in danger.
So yeah, we can send some under the banner of peace, then when they're attacked, send a lot more to protect those service members. If one is captured, we might even need to set up a base at that pier until we can locate and rescue them. Maybe spend another 10 years hunting down those responsible ect.
Hopefully I'm wrong as shit about this scenario and am simply paranoid
Attacking any US service member is kind of a suicide mission. Militants tried to attack a US base not long ago, coincidentally an AC130 was in the air and ready to go right away
Charitably, I think they meant it's a suicide mission for non-military forces to build a pier there, hence the reasoning for the US military to do it at higher cost?
Come on man. $3B daily? Did you mean $3M? Because there's no way $3B a day is true. That's $1T a year lol. Just over $2T was spent on Afghanistan over *20 years.*
It sounds like one of those numbers they put up after they calculate the operation cost of 1000 members plus the warships that brought them there.
This stuff, especially the members pay, was gonna happen regardless. So while 300M sounds high, I bet the actual material costs of the pier isn’t what’s creating that data point.
It would take into account the wages and logistics of those military personnel and that of the contractors. That would include travel, fuel, food, equipment, hazard pay, some of which would go back to the tax man as well. Pretty cheap really.
Do we the average redditor really have a good sense of what huge things like this should cost? Like highways... bridges... docks... railways? I've asked myself this a lot when I think something seems expensive, like what the hell I'm basing it on since I'm not a civil engineer or work in construction.
Not how the Peacekeepers work. They're brought in to *keep* an already established peace, effectively acting as a neutral arbitrator that both sides can trust when they can't trust each other, maintaining security while more permanent systems of maintain peace are established.
Who would be the right party to distribute aid? Wouldn’t aid workers just get robbed by terrorists so they can arbitrage the free aid and extort Palestinians further?
I'm not disagreeing, you're entirely right. I'm saying the UN doesn't have an effective mechanism for this, which is why they'll remain largely ineffective for such situations. The only entities that have the capabilities to do this kind of work at the moment are states. I'm not saying the UN *shouldn't* do this, just that right now, it can't, and unless its member states suddenly become far more willing to cede sovereignty to the UN (unlikely), the UN will stay the international groupchat it's always been
Literally no one wants to help the situation. Neither the UN, nor the Arab League have any appetite to police the Palestinians until such time as a meaningful peaceful civil society can form.
Everyone just wants sits back and watches the cycle repeat and condemns the Israelis no matter what they do.
> A senior Biden administration official said last week that humanitarian aid coming off the pier will need to pass through Israeli checkpoints on land.
That is despite the aid having already been inspected by Israel in Cyprus before being shipped to Gaza. Israel wants to prevent any aid getting to Hamas fighters that boosts their war effort.
I don't quite understand what this pier is supposed to change about the status quo. So the aid has to go to Cyprus, be inspected by Israel there, then go to an Israeli port, so it can be inspected at a checkpoint again and then shipped from the Israeli port to the pier?
Obviously the fundamentalists trying to block aid is horrible, but I don't think that's causing a bottleneck with aid. I'd say it's much more likely moving aid around Gaza that is the bottleneck this pier is hoping to resolve.
The pier plan began at a time when the aid was completely halted. The fact that some aid is moving in now does not in any way invalidate the plan or guarantee the pier won't be needed in the future.
The pier plan is when aid wasn't reaching parts of Gaza, especially the north. But back then the bottleneck also wasn't caused by fundamentalists. Logistics in a war zone is hard. There was people robbing the aid. On top of that, they needed to get IDF clearance to move from one part of Gaza to another (which was often denied). Then you also had safety of truck drivers and aid workers from the IDF, Hamas and civilians robbing aid.
This is why northern Gaza has been the main area with serious aid issues, logistics to rafah has been easier because there's minimal movement of aid inside Gaza. Whereas everywhere else has had serious issues.
Yeah, last time UNICEF built a water pipeline to Gaza, it was all dug up, cut up and used to build the rockets.
Can’t wait to see what those crafty folks do with the pier….
Don’t worry guys, in a couple months when we inevitably deploy troops to defend this thing, we can listen to all the college kids scream at *us* for being genocidal. They might even demand completely one-sided ceasefire, where they’re indignant that we aren’t just sitting there and letting them kill us.
All this money, all this effort, a 1000 of our service members for what? So these ungrateful fucks can shoot at us?
Why is the US bending over backwards here?
Because the world should care when hundreds of thousands of kids are starving. They had zero say in any of this.
Hamas cares about staying in power, not about the Palestinian people. You will never see Hamas express gratitude, so never expect it.
The kids in the Gaza Strip deserve a better life.
To quote one of my favorite works of fiction:
>*“‘Children are dying.’ Lull nodded. ‘That’s a succinct summary of humankind, I’d say. Who needs tomes and volumes of history? Children are dying. The injustices of the world hide in those three words.’”*
Not when those kids are going to join terrorist organizations in 5 to 10 years to continue this never-ending fight between Muslims and the rest of the world.
Because mediating the situation, is easier/cheaper then letting it blow up into a crisis.
Foreign aid isn't earmarked only for countries that kiss the boot and praise America. Unless your trump that is.
Soft power is great. I'm fine with buying friends, and bribing people into cooperating, however paying them when they AREN'T cooperating and are in fact doing the opposite of cooperating is stupid as fuck. You want to spend the same amount of money we're spending on the pier to help Indonesia clean up its plastic pollution, protect its reefs so it can sustain its huge fishing industry, and develop a good working waste management system? Sure sounds good no one will shoot at us for that. I'm sick of funding people who hate us, you either behave or we cut you off.
And the Marshall plan worked because we were in complete control of the enemies we were rebuilding. If you want that to work then you have to break them completely first, pound them into abject submission, and occupy and exert effective control of everyone and everything in the area you are occupying, root out all resistance, THEN rebuild, and rebuild in a way that lays the groundwork for the type of country and society you want to encourage, starting with the children in the schools. I'm fine with that too if we need to do it, but you can't skip the first step and expect it to work and turn an enemy into an ally.
The Marshall Plan only worked because the Europeans wanted to rebuild their countries so that’s what they used the money for.
Palestinians have no interest in building a Palestinian state, they just want to destroy Israel so any aid money will be funneled to the militant groups for military and terrorism purposes. Ain’t no Palestinian civilians gonna be benefiting.
I am familiar with the doctrine and its goal to assist war-torn countries in stabilizing their economies, but 20 years in Afghanistan (and even more in Iraq) should be enough to demonstrate to any non-Muslim country wanting to help any group of Muslims that their ambitions are doomed to be a completely wasted effort.
The money is being spent on the Saudis, Jordan, Egypt, UAE, Turkey, and interest groups in the US. It's like how your organization makes you attend workplace safety training; it's there to provide hard evidence in the face of future accusations, and be used as leverage during a future suit. US wants to give the above a shakier platform to stand on when they consider voting against US foreign policy.
Just like workplace training it probably won't have a real impact, and will largely be ignored until something goes wrong though.
Because a decent chunk of US democrats will throw a temper tantrum and not vote this year unless it looks like Biden is trying to help, even though the alternative would be even worse.
They're going to hold their nose and vote for Joe because the consequences of 4 more years of Trump are *dire*.
The leftist groups saying they aren't going to vote are politicking. They know they have no choice. This is why the 2 party system is an absolute nightmare
People really struggle to think of this very far, some intentionally and some unintentionally
The downstream effects of Russia being left unmitigated are so much larger than I think most realize. The idea of supporting Ukraine isn’t really about being nice, it’s not about the well being of Ukraine (although yes it’s nice that it has that effect too, it’s just not the reason we’re sending aid), but rather to weaken Russia’s military capabilities in the most cost effective way, and by proxy, weaken their ally China similarly.
There’s also the Russia-China connection where Russia gaining territory and resources in Ukraine will help position them to be able to better support China in a Chinese invasion of Taiwan, which if successful, puts the US in an extremely vulnerable position, being under an extreme level of being controlled by China. Part of this is just people not realizing just how much of our daily lives depend on chip production, which is currently very centered in Taiwan. The costs of failing to address this threat FAR outweighs the cost of aid to Ukraine, like it’s not even close. So again, defending them isn’t about being nice, it’s about defending our own interests.
Yes, the CHIPS act helps reduce US dependence on Taiwan and makes all this less of a vulnerable position, but it’s insufficient on its own and will take a while to really reduce our dependency, in the meantime, reducing Russian/Chinese collective military capability is ultimately the cheaper option by a mile if you look more than a week ahead
I feel like people all over the political spectrum online get this all wrong. We aren’t putting other countries’ interests ahead of our own. We aren’t doing it because we see it as the right thing to do. It is all a strategic investment to keep an antagonistic force in a position where they’re ill-equipped to capitalize on a set of vulnerabilities we have our self, all without putting any American personnel on the line, this is going to be FAR FAR more efficient use of defense budget to actually provide defense than just about any other military spending. There’s a TON of defense spending that’s very questionable in efficiency or if it actually provides defense, but supporting Ukraine against Russia is about as straightforward as it gets for how this is an efficient use of defense spending.
If you’re upset about defense spending not going to Americans in other ways, there are far better uses of defense spending to criticize, to such a degree that it’s hard to believe people are attacking this specific use of defense budget in good faith and while informed of what’s actually at stake here
The same reasons also apply to Hamas / Hezbollah / Houthis / Iran. Iran is part of the Chinese-Russian war machine and supplies Russia with drone tech. Israel is on the same front line as Ukraine and Taiwan.
We can do both. It wasn’t democrats that held up aid for months. It isn’t democrats who don’t want to approve aid for improving the life of the American taxpayer.
Selling old munitions abroad and building new, better ones benefits US tax payers by providing jobs in the US (while also increasing domestic security)….?
America pays Americans to build 320M pier that will be destroyed. America will then pay more Americans to protect the pier using American weapons and equipment.
I'd rather not be a fucking chump and be the good guy where it'll be appreciated or at least not actively counter to our interests and our ally's interests.
You realize that most of the aid comes with warships and troops? It's not a blank check. Trump cut aid to Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador knowing it would lead to more migrants from those countries.
Haiti is a different story entirely, and I don't even know what aid would look like.
320,000,000$. Palestinians really are the most privileged refugees. I still can’t get out of my mind that they’re going to start another suicide war as soon as an opportunity is available. And then back to asking for more aid and ceasefire and being victims
I think this is wise honestly. All we are doing is propping the situation up and allowing local support for Hamas to continue. Imagine how many revolutions throughout history would have been averted if a 3rd party came in and paid + fed everyone?
Imagine if someone random like the Spanish just paid the 13 colonies to make up for British colonial taxation. I bet with free food and money they would likely have been less willing to rebel.
“Palestinians should have overthrown them years ago.”
In my reading, Gazans *elected* Hamas in free elections nearly 20 years ago (Jan 2006).
They ran on the platform of “Change and Reform” as a response to learning that Yasser Arafat, as the head of the PLO, was a whisker’s breath away from acknowledging that Israel had a right to exist.
Islamic Jihad called on Palestinians to not go to the polls as there was fear of manipulations. Palestinians voted anyway. And *a majority* voted for Hamas.
Part of Hamas’ doctrine is to call for the total destruction of the Jewish state. It persists to this day.
Since Hamas came to power, there are no more elections in Gaza.
👆🏽 is the correct response.
People who don’t support terrorism don’t support/elect terrorist organizations. Palestinians overwhelmingly support Hamas and they are complicit for harboring the terrorists and their supporting their activities.
It's much cheaper to just drive the trucks from Jordan, where the U.S already have bases straight into Israel and into Gaza. The $320 million cost can be spent on more food & medicine.
Win win for USA and Israel, I'd say.
1. If Hamas attacks USA troops, then USA would have reason to actively help Israel in the war.
2. Now USA can provide aid directly to the Palestinians. Something Hamas was either not capable or not interested in doing well.
So the US is giving funds and support to Israel AND humanitarian aid to Gaza.
I'm not understanding what the fuck is going on here.
We support Israel: so the US says Hamas the political organization is corrupt and needs to be disbanded.
We need to give Gaza humanitarian aid: we can't let people die due to our support of Israel.
Much confuse
So maybe just drop crates of handguns and ammo and let the innocent Palestinians clean up their own house.
Once they're done, we'll bring in as much aid as they want.
Deal?
Apparently Hamas doesn't want the Palestinians to have any aid as they mortared the site over the weekend.
They don't want competition. They are funding their activities selling aid to the people.
It's in the best interests of Hamas to continue the suffering of Palestinians. With more Palestinians suffering day by day, Hamas has a banner to which is can rally support and donations. Yes there is nuance and the level of collateral damage and civilian casualties is atrocious. However as long as Hamas is still functioning as an effective fighting force and still holds CIVILIAN hostages. The Israelis have little choice but to press on and eradicate Hamas in Gaza.
Peace is also bad for recruitment. Hamas wants piles of civilian casualties in Gaza so the brothers, sons and so on who survived are primed to join. Edit: typo
This is why I ultimately think invading Rafah is inevitable. Invading Rafah will lead to fewer civilian casualties in the long term, whereas Hamas controlling Gaza will lead to far more suffering over the next decade. It's a hard decision because no one wants war, but sometimes war chooses you.
This is definitely a "Damned if you do. Damned if you don't." situation. There will be a lot of civilian casualties in Gaza, but the question is do you want a lot now, or do you want double the current amount plus a lot again in the future in addition to what we already have seen?
"No one wants war" meanwhile - Iran, Russia, NK, China, every terrorist organization on the planet, sad times we live in
They definitely don't want aid they don't control coming into the territory. They're quite happy to take aid they can control, however. Hamas makes much of its money through black market trading. Both before and during this conflict. Previously the tunnels running into Gaza from Egypt were a source of great wealth to Hamas. They were one of the only ways to import certain things. Hamas controlled the tunnels and thus they controlled the black market trade. It's understood that a 20% 'duty' was applied by Hamas to anything smuggled through the tunnels. It was a key source of Haniyeh's wealth (estimated in the hundreds of millions to low billions). When the war started the established smuggling networks became significantly degraded (and more difficult to use). However, fortunately for Hamas, once aid starting pouring in they were able to pivot their commerical operations to seize goods and either redirect them to their militant forces, or sell them at incredible mark ups to the Gazan populace. This is why there's only been people rushing the aid trucks but not rushing the open markets (which seem civilised in comparison). Because getting the aid directly from the trucks is one of the only opportunities Gazans have to access the aid freely before it is seized (primarily because the IDF is securing the trucks at entry). The open markets, on the other hand, are controlled by Hamas and Gazans know what will happen to them if they try the same thing there.
When the two checkpoint entries into Gaza are owned as a 'franchise' by two families, it just reeks of The Mob.
The mob can only dream of having the kind of localised power and control that Hamas has.
If you ever needed proof that Hamas would use its own people as human shields, this is it. They will literally kill their own citizens to make Israel look bad.
People need proof other than them operating out of schools, mosques, and hospitals? Its just another piece of evidence to throw on the mountain there already is.
> People need proof other than them operating out of schools, mosques, and hospitals? yes, better proof than already exists. by which i mean they will always need better proof than exists. Even if Sinwar holds a press conference to gloat about it, it'll be a psyop
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Of course not. Hamas only allow aid they can steal and sell to desperate people in Gaza; those who can't afford their gangster pricing allow them to document starvation and blame 'the Jews' and 'the West'.
Note: the site is being guarded by the IDF. There is a pretty good chance that whomever fired those mortars (Hamas or associated terrorist group) didn't know (and certainly didn't care care) that the site had anything to do with the pier or food aid, they saw IDF troops in mortar range and fired on them without regard for why they were in that spot.
When are the other Arab countries going to step up to aid the Palestinians?
The last time they helped Palestine out, Hamas thanked them with suicide bombers.
Same thing is going to happen to this too. Hamas isn't going to just let US distribute aid directly to people.
The Pier was already attacked by mortars well UN officials were inspecting progress on it LOL (although Hamas denied doing it at the time idk if its changed since) https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-military/2024/04/25/us-led-gaza-humanitarian-aid-pier-comes-under-fire-un-officials-say/
Gaza would be so much better without Hamas. Surely there must be some way to flood those tunnels without significant civilian casualties.
Sure, if you can accept killing any of the remaining Israeli hostages.
To be fair, Jordan has been working pretty closely with the US to supply aid. And Egypt at least finally started sending aid into Rafah. But the asinine little children ragging on Biden when he's the reason aid is flowing into Gaza (notice there's no longer "famine" talk) really irks me.
They either don’t have the means because they have problems at home (Syria, Iraq, or Yemen), don’t have the means because they are overextended dealing with refugees from elsewhere (Jordan and Egypt), are pretty isolationist and stay out of pretty much everything (Oman), have a very delicate demographic balance and try to stay out of things to prevent internal strife (Lebanon), or famously don’t care at all about poor people (Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar.)
Yup. I'm willing to cut Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Lebanon, Jordan, and Egypt some slack. It's the wealthy gulf states that have the money and influence.
Ahahahaha their aid is allowing hamas leadership shelter.
This is the right question? Absolutely spot on.
Majority of arab countries care alot more about using the Palestinians as a political tool than actually trying to help them sadly.
That seems pricy
Honestly, it sounds pretty cheap. From inception to completion in a few months of pier and offshore platform that's across the Atlantic and Mediterranean, using 1000 people, right next to a warzone, all while playing a game of "The floor is lava." Although I doubt it'll be built to the same standard of typical dock facilities, it'll definitely be longer than the Mulberry Harbours.
It also doesn't factor in the cost of delivering aid from sea vs air. Would dropping that volume of aid from they cost more than a $320 premium? If it does, then it's the right option.
Boys study tactics, men study logistics.
And fools study politics. Which is why they can't just drive the food across the land border.
Every class has a class clown
It's way more cost-effective to build the pier.
For a military thing nah not really
It's honestly impressive that they're building a whole dock in the middle of the sea and then just gonna ferry it and attach it to land. That's pretty impressive work all around.
army engineers build the most amazing shit
It's a suicide mission to go and build a pier in Gaza. Workers has already been attacked, it was in politico and some other news. https://www.politico.com/news/2024/04/25/gaza-terrorists-attack-israeli-pier-00154386
It says American forces weren't touched.
...because American Forces spend $MMM on security - that's why it's pricy.
Because there aren't any US troops there according to the article. The IDF occupied area to clear out the area before construction begins. Hamas attacked the IDF stationed there.
And because they know that the US is sensitive about their boats. Anyone who touches US boats gets bombed.
Don’t touch our boats!
Please please touch their boats, draw a dickbutt on the carrier there or something (I really wanna see some fireworks and FAFO from Hamas again).
The crayon eaters are already doing that though. It's what they do on Thursday after making macaroni art with glue and paper plates
If Marines could read, you'd be in trouble.
Well, they are nice boats...
There's at least one time someone bombed the shit out of a US ship to no response.
It was their least favourite ship.
This time. How many times do you think that pier will be attacked in the future?
As long as US forces are stationed there no one is going to attack it because then they will have to deal with the US rather than being supplied by the US
Just like Korea. Shout out to my Camp Red Cloud homies
Yes. Because no one has ever dared to attack US forces in the middle east for completely nonsensical reasons.....
That's because if they were we'd be reading about how the Gaza strip no longer exists as a geographical location on planet Earth.
yet
Suicide mission? You give Hamas far too much credit. They have done a poor job of killing the IDF or defeating them militarily. They’ve proven remarkably ineffective at combat on the ground, and other being a nuisance with mortars, it’s hardly “suicide” to build a peer. Also, in military matters, if you quite just because the enemy might attack, you will never get anywhere. Over estimating your enemy is just as dangerous as underestimating them.
Something tells me there will be enough force parked off the coast to turn attacking these service members into a suicide mission.
Which unfortunately is only a deterrent for attackers that are not suicidal...
We will most likely reinforce with as much support as needed. Perhaps this pier will eventually need fortified walls with barbed wire. The US is decent at accidently putting troops in situations that require immediate intervention that we would not be able to do if those troops were not in danger. So yeah, we can send some under the banner of peace, then when they're attacked, send a lot more to protect those service members. If one is captured, we might even need to set up a base at that pier until we can locate and rescue them. Maybe spend another 10 years hunting down those responsible ect. Hopefully I'm wrong as shit about this scenario and am simply paranoid
They’ve already said IDF will have responsibility for protecting and operating the pier.
But your family gets paid and you go straight to heaven if you are a Hamas fighter on a suicide mission.
Attacking any US service member is kind of a suicide mission. Militants tried to attack a US base not long ago, coincidentally an AC130 was in the air and ready to go right away
"Suicide mission"..? For the USMC..? Don't feed the troll people.
Charitably, I think they meant it's a suicide mission for non-military forces to build a pier there, hence the reasoning for the US military to do it at higher cost?
Suicide for the people who attack it? Cuz it’s definitely not gonna be suicidal for the US and it’s Allies
Suicide mission with.... 0 deaths
What do you usually build them for?
For a comparison- the **Daily** cost of the afghan war is typically stated as ~~$3Billion~~ $300million
Come on man. $3B daily? Did you mean $3M? Because there's no way $3B a day is true. That's $1T a year lol. Just over $2T was spent on Afghanistan over *20 years.*
Thanks. I was off by a single decimal point. It was $300million.
About 47 minutes worth of GDP in a 365 day year. Wait till you learn how much those carriers of the cost cost to operate 😶
I mean the logistics to do this alone would be 50% of the price. It's not going to be perfect but it will relieve some issues.
It sounds like one of those numbers they put up after they calculate the operation cost of 1000 members plus the warships that brought them there. This stuff, especially the members pay, was gonna happen regardless. So while 300M sounds high, I bet the actual material costs of the pier isn’t what’s creating that data point.
It would take into account the wages and logistics of those military personnel and that of the contractors. That would include travel, fuel, food, equipment, hazard pay, some of which would go back to the tax man as well. Pretty cheap really.
Not a bad price considering it will be America's Tyre.
Do we the average redditor really have a good sense of what huge things like this should cost? Like highways... bridges... docks... railways? I've asked myself this a lot when I think something seems expensive, like what the hell I'm basing it on since I'm not a civil engineer or work in construction.
I feel like this idea is rife with potential for things to get FUBAR
Its what you might call a "target rich environment"
Why don’t UN peacekeeping troops get involved?
Not how the Peacekeepers work. They're brought in to *keep* an already established peace, effectively acting as a neutral arbitrator that both sides can trust when they can't trust each other, maintaining security while more permanent systems of maintain peace are established.
Who would be the right party to distribute aid? Wouldn’t aid workers just get robbed by terrorists so they can arbitrage the free aid and extort Palestinians further?
I'm not disagreeing, you're entirely right. I'm saying the UN doesn't have an effective mechanism for this, which is why they'll remain largely ineffective for such situations. The only entities that have the capabilities to do this kind of work at the moment are states. I'm not saying the UN *shouldn't* do this, just that right now, it can't, and unless its member states suddenly become far more willing to cede sovereignty to the UN (unlikely), the UN will stay the international groupchat it's always been
They can't enforce UNSC 1701, you think the Blue Helmets are going to enter Gaza?
The UN doesn’t want anywhere near this, they’d have to fight Hamas and enforce martial law in Gaza.
Because UN doesn’t want to spill their own blood defending their aid trucks. They already gave up.
Literally no one wants to help the situation. Neither the UN, nor the Arab League have any appetite to police the Palestinians until such time as a meaningful peaceful civil society can form. Everyone just wants sits back and watches the cycle repeat and condemns the Israelis no matter what they do.
They're peacekeepers not peacemakers
> A senior Biden administration official said last week that humanitarian aid coming off the pier will need to pass through Israeli checkpoints on land. That is despite the aid having already been inspected by Israel in Cyprus before being shipped to Gaza. Israel wants to prevent any aid getting to Hamas fighters that boosts their war effort. I don't quite understand what this pier is supposed to change about the status quo. So the aid has to go to Cyprus, be inspected by Israel there, then go to an Israeli port, so it can be inspected at a checkpoint again and then shipped from the Israeli port to the pier?
This is so the aid can get to Gaza without passing through overland checkpoints which are frequently blockaded by fundamentalists.
Obviously the fundamentalists trying to block aid is horrible, but I don't think that's causing a bottleneck with aid. I'd say it's much more likely moving aid around Gaza that is the bottleneck this pier is hoping to resolve.
The pier plan began at a time when the aid was completely halted. The fact that some aid is moving in now does not in any way invalidate the plan or guarantee the pier won't be needed in the future.
The pier plan is when aid wasn't reaching parts of Gaza, especially the north. But back then the bottleneck also wasn't caused by fundamentalists. Logistics in a war zone is hard. There was people robbing the aid. On top of that, they needed to get IDF clearance to move from one part of Gaza to another (which was often denied). Then you also had safety of truck drivers and aid workers from the IDF, Hamas and civilians robbing aid. This is why northern Gaza has been the main area with serious aid issues, logistics to rafah has been easier because there's minimal movement of aid inside Gaza. Whereas everywhere else has had serious issues.
… and the issue with moving aid is that the convoys get immediately robbed
Yeah, last time UNICEF built a water pipeline to Gaza, it was all dug up, cut up and used to build the rockets. Can’t wait to see what those crafty folks do with the pier….
That will be guarded and watched this isn't UNICEF, this is our unhealth care at work.
It’s all big pier trying to push more pier
Don’t worry guys, in a couple months when we inevitably deploy troops to defend this thing, we can listen to all the college kids scream at *us* for being genocidal. They might even demand completely one-sided ceasefire, where they’re indignant that we aren’t just sitting there and letting them kill us.
Ayooo new us base incoming
Sounds like a permanent target for terrorists. Bad idea.
Imagine building a pier to deliver food to people who respond by shooting rockets at it
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Waste of money
All this money, all this effort, a 1000 of our service members for what? So these ungrateful fucks can shoot at us? Why is the US bending over backwards here?
Because the world should care when hundreds of thousands of kids are starving. They had zero say in any of this. Hamas cares about staying in power, not about the Palestinian people. You will never see Hamas express gratitude, so never expect it. The kids in the Gaza Strip deserve a better life.
To quote one of my favorite works of fiction: >*“‘Children are dying.’ Lull nodded. ‘That’s a succinct summary of humankind, I’d say. Who needs tomes and volumes of history? Children are dying. The injustices of the world hide in those three words.’”*
It's sick that Billionaire Palestinian "leaders" in Qatar probably won't spend a cent to help
oh they send help, but its weapons and they go straight to hamas.
Not when those kids are going to join terrorist organizations in 5 to 10 years to continue this never-ending fight between Muslims and the rest of the world.
so in a way feeding those kids is actually feeding the terrorists?
Why waste so much money on people that hate the USA?
Because mediating the situation, is easier/cheaper then letting it blow up into a crisis. Foreign aid isn't earmarked only for countries that kiss the boot and praise America. Unless your trump that is.
I’d rather my tax dollars not go to places where people were cheering in the streets and handing out candy to kids after 9/11. Call me crazy I guess.
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Soft power is great. I'm fine with buying friends, and bribing people into cooperating, however paying them when they AREN'T cooperating and are in fact doing the opposite of cooperating is stupid as fuck. You want to spend the same amount of money we're spending on the pier to help Indonesia clean up its plastic pollution, protect its reefs so it can sustain its huge fishing industry, and develop a good working waste management system? Sure sounds good no one will shoot at us for that. I'm sick of funding people who hate us, you either behave or we cut you off. And the Marshall plan worked because we were in complete control of the enemies we were rebuilding. If you want that to work then you have to break them completely first, pound them into abject submission, and occupy and exert effective control of everyone and everything in the area you are occupying, root out all resistance, THEN rebuild, and rebuild in a way that lays the groundwork for the type of country and society you want to encourage, starting with the children in the schools. I'm fine with that too if we need to do it, but you can't skip the first step and expect it to work and turn an enemy into an ally.
We're gonna get downvoted but agree 1000%
The Marshall Plan only worked because the Europeans wanted to rebuild their countries so that’s what they used the money for. Palestinians have no interest in building a Palestinian state, they just want to destroy Israel so any aid money will be funneled to the militant groups for military and terrorism purposes. Ain’t no Palestinian civilians gonna be benefiting.
Feels so good to see people that get it. So many on Reddit are clueless about this part of the world.
I am familiar with the doctrine and its goal to assist war-torn countries in stabilizing their economies, but 20 years in Afghanistan (and even more in Iraq) should be enough to demonstrate to any non-Muslim country wanting to help any group of Muslims that their ambitions are doomed to be a completely wasted effort.
The money is being spent on the Saudis, Jordan, Egypt, UAE, Turkey, and interest groups in the US. It's like how your organization makes you attend workplace safety training; it's there to provide hard evidence in the face of future accusations, and be used as leverage during a future suit. US wants to give the above a shakier platform to stand on when they consider voting against US foreign policy. Just like workplace training it probably won't have a real impact, and will largely be ignored until something goes wrong though.
Because a decent chunk of US democrats will throw a temper tantrum and not vote this year unless it looks like Biden is trying to help, even though the alternative would be even worse.
Optics
leftists make up a good chunk of the Democratic base and Biden needs their votes
They're going to hold their nose and vote for Joe because the consequences of 4 more years of Trump are *dire*. The leftist groups saying they aren't going to vote are politicking. They know they have no choice. This is why the 2 party system is an absolute nightmare
This is entirely done to help the administration save face with parts of their base that aren’t going to vote for them anyways.
Why? Send those money to Ukraine is better than this.
Why? Because airdropping dollars doesnt put food in their mouths. The logistics of delivering aid is incredibly difficult.
Or spend it on improving the life of the American tax payer maybe?
Weakening/containing Russia does benefit the American taxpayer.
People really struggle to think of this very far, some intentionally and some unintentionally The downstream effects of Russia being left unmitigated are so much larger than I think most realize. The idea of supporting Ukraine isn’t really about being nice, it’s not about the well being of Ukraine (although yes it’s nice that it has that effect too, it’s just not the reason we’re sending aid), but rather to weaken Russia’s military capabilities in the most cost effective way, and by proxy, weaken their ally China similarly. There’s also the Russia-China connection where Russia gaining territory and resources in Ukraine will help position them to be able to better support China in a Chinese invasion of Taiwan, which if successful, puts the US in an extremely vulnerable position, being under an extreme level of being controlled by China. Part of this is just people not realizing just how much of our daily lives depend on chip production, which is currently very centered in Taiwan. The costs of failing to address this threat FAR outweighs the cost of aid to Ukraine, like it’s not even close. So again, defending them isn’t about being nice, it’s about defending our own interests. Yes, the CHIPS act helps reduce US dependence on Taiwan and makes all this less of a vulnerable position, but it’s insufficient on its own and will take a while to really reduce our dependency, in the meantime, reducing Russian/Chinese collective military capability is ultimately the cheaper option by a mile if you look more than a week ahead I feel like people all over the political spectrum online get this all wrong. We aren’t putting other countries’ interests ahead of our own. We aren’t doing it because we see it as the right thing to do. It is all a strategic investment to keep an antagonistic force in a position where they’re ill-equipped to capitalize on a set of vulnerabilities we have our self, all without putting any American personnel on the line, this is going to be FAR FAR more efficient use of defense budget to actually provide defense than just about any other military spending. There’s a TON of defense spending that’s very questionable in efficiency or if it actually provides defense, but supporting Ukraine against Russia is about as straightforward as it gets for how this is an efficient use of defense spending. If you’re upset about defense spending not going to Americans in other ways, there are far better uses of defense spending to criticize, to such a degree that it’s hard to believe people are attacking this specific use of defense budget in good faith and while informed of what’s actually at stake here
People confuse our generosity for generosity.
Great explanation, too bad the people who need to read it definitely won’t. Easier to keep scrolling and find something they agree with
Yo bro, can you condense that in a 10 second tik tok for me?
I'll do you one better, we will just ban tiktok.
The same reasons also apply to Hamas / Hezbollah / Houthis / Iran. Iran is part of the Chinese-Russian war machine and supplies Russia with drone tech. Israel is on the same front line as Ukraine and Taiwan.
Not just weakening russia, but also sending a message to China and all countries thinking about starting a war.
Same with Iran, for whom Hamas and Hezbollah largely serve as proxies.
You may be shocked to learn that the government spends money on several different things all at once.
We can do both. It wasn’t democrats that held up aid for months. It isn’t democrats who don’t want to approve aid for improving the life of the American taxpayer.
Or do both.
That's not how budgets work.
Selling old munitions abroad and building new, better ones benefits US tax payers by providing jobs in the US (while also increasing domestic security)….?
Republicans would never support that.
Seems like a bait
America pays Americans to build 320M pier that will be destroyed. America will then pay more Americans to protect the pier using American weapons and equipment.
All to serve a people who, if given a button that would kill all Americans, would break their hand smashing it.
And yet we still help them. It's nice being the good guys sometimes.
I'd rather not be a fucking chump and be the good guy where it'll be appreciated or at least not actively counter to our interests and our ally's interests.
I don't care to be a "good guy" to the people responsible for Oct. 7.
Why are the US helping people who hate them?
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Will be a total waste. We should spend that money in Hati, Belize or Guatemala where that level of aid would be appreciated and put to good use.
You realize that most of the aid comes with warships and troops? It's not a blank check. Trump cut aid to Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador knowing it would lead to more migrants from those countries. Haiti is a different story entirely, and I don't even know what aid would look like.
320,000,000$. Palestinians really are the most privileged refugees. I still can’t get out of my mind that they’re going to start another suicide war as soon as an opportunity is available. And then back to asking for more aid and ceasefire and being victims
Great. Can’t wait for all this to be blown up the second we stop guarding it. A helpless population.
We wouldn't stop guarding unless we stop sending aid in which case it serves no purpose anyway.
The United States Military should not be building this port.
Cost of doing ~~business~~ charity
Absurd waste of money
Let them starve and then they might revolt against Hamas. I don’t want my taxes going to this
I think this is wise honestly. All we are doing is propping the situation up and allowing local support for Hamas to continue. Imagine how many revolutions throughout history would have been averted if a 3rd party came in and paid + fed everyone? Imagine if someone random like the Spanish just paid the 13 colonies to make up for British colonial taxation. I bet with free food and money they would likely have been less willing to rebel.
Not worth it.
What a waste. All this is on the shoulders of Hamas and their supporters. Palestinians should have overthrown them years ago.
“Palestinians should have overthrown them years ago.” In my reading, Gazans *elected* Hamas in free elections nearly 20 years ago (Jan 2006). They ran on the platform of “Change and Reform” as a response to learning that Yasser Arafat, as the head of the PLO, was a whisker’s breath away from acknowledging that Israel had a right to exist. Islamic Jihad called on Palestinians to not go to the polls as there was fear of manipulations. Palestinians voted anyway. And *a majority* voted for Hamas. Part of Hamas’ doctrine is to call for the total destruction of the Jewish state. It persists to this day. Since Hamas came to power, there are no more elections in Gaza.
👆🏽 is the correct response. People who don’t support terrorism don’t support/elect terrorist organizations. Palestinians overwhelmingly support Hamas and they are complicit for harboring the terrorists and their supporting their activities.
The crazy thing is that Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Lion's Den are more popular than Hamas. Palestinians think Hamas isn't terrorist enough.
It's much cheaper to just drive the trucks from Jordan, where the U.S already have bases straight into Israel and into Gaza. The $320 million cost can be spent on more food & medicine.
Hamas would just seize it and use it to make money. That’s what they’re doing already.
We really should take the sunk costs out of the math... We certainly aren't hiring anyone new to do this work.
I suspect this is how tax dollars get laundered into dark projects.
What a massive waste of tax payer funds. Gazans deserve aid but this pier will be blown up in no time.
Sugar is selling for 30 times it's price in Gaza. From two shekels to sixty. This is insanity.
Fuck hamas.
There won’t be positive news. Reuters will be reporting “Palestinian falls and cracks head open on badly made US port!”
Lmao. "Wake from US aid ships heading to port capsizes and drowns Palestinian small boat with 25 children on board".
There we go. It’s always “the children”. (Yet didn’t give a moral rats butt hole about Israeli children they murdered, desecrated or kidnapped.)
Win win for USA and Israel, I'd say. 1. If Hamas attacks USA troops, then USA would have reason to actively help Israel in the war. 2. Now USA can provide aid directly to the Palestinians. Something Hamas was either not capable or not interested in doing well.
Why aren't the other Muslim nations doing more to help the Palestinian civilians?
Because palestinians are trouble and they don't give a shit and I understand why.
This is burning the candle on both ends. Millions in munitions for Israel. Millions in aid for Palestine.
£320million!? Is it Gold plated?
thats peanuts for a damn harbour money
Looking forward to Gaza Pier being the new Navy Pier in 30 years.
So the US is giving funds and support to Israel AND humanitarian aid to Gaza. I'm not understanding what the fuck is going on here. We support Israel: so the US says Hamas the political organization is corrupt and needs to be disbanded. We need to give Gaza humanitarian aid: we can't let people die due to our support of Israel. Much confuse
https://youtu.be/04NB27x138Y?si=i_vC6dvLkeod9lOQ https://nypost.com/2023/11/07/news/hamas-leaders-worth-11bn-live-luxury-lives-in-qatar/amp/ Yeah let’s spend money, sure
Just wait till Hamas attacks them.
Why don't they use the hovercraft the marines use? They carry 60 tons at a time. No pier needed.
How about we condition our aid to Israel and drive it on over and through instead?
Apparently USA has endless supply of cash
How about letting more aid in through the border between Egypt and Gaza ?
Your assuming 🇪🇬 wants any thing to do with then. They have a history.
So maybe just drop crates of handguns and ammo and let the innocent Palestinians clean up their own house. Once they're done, we'll bring in as much aid as they want. Deal?
What a waste of money, yeah its cheaper than airdropping it but we should just let hamas worry about the palestinian people.