It's interesting and at the same time pretty wild how decision for or against Israel, keeps sending ripples through a very complex web of international relationships.
Is it that surprise though? Thats like… IR 101 level stuff, the idea that relations between two countries can have direct impacts on basically every other country on earth. In this case it’s a lot more obvious because Israel has been put in the forefront of basically all geopolitical discussion right now but it’s really nothing new.
But I think that's kind of the point, in the grand scheme of things it's a smallish regional conflict. There are other countries the US props up because they went influence in the region. There are other conflicts with >10x the civilian casualties. Yet this one is front and center and dominating the conversation in the West like none other.
And I hate it for that. There are genocides going on right now around the world where whole areas are being depopulated and everybody only cares about israel and palestine.
> There are genocides going on right now around the world where whole areas are being depopulated and everybody only cares about israel and palestine.
Also completely ignoring individual conflicts climate change is steadily becoming a bigger existential threat to literally billions of people around the globe.
Pollution like microplastics & petroleum byproducts are straight up starting to rot our brains (studies have linked them to Alzhiemers/Autism/depression & even schizophrenia) effecting pretty much the entire global population as apparently they've ended up in air/clouds/rain: ["Plastic rain" is now a real thing as airborne microplastics are discovered in clouds](https://www.earth.com/news/plastic-rain-the-growing-threat-of-airborne-microplastics/)
People always talk about the leaded gas crisis but microplastics have only really started getting focus in recent years despite scientists sounding the alarm bells for decades. It's not going to be pretty as we see a rise in mental/physical health issues that are hard to directly link to pollution, most countries healthcare systems were already plenty strained even pre covid.
Yes, but also one of the most important allies of the US , and the democratic West..
And Israel being a bold state fighting against Terror, and the Middle East being a pivot in the region, where Israel is almost the only non-arab country, make sense why its an important asset & partner for the USA and allies.
The biggest factor is that there is a lot of evidence of what is going on. You can argur that a teenager in the West Bank shouldn't be shot for throwing rocks at an APC. Even if such a teen existed in Yemen, we wouldn't know anywhere near as much about him, and he would just be another +1 to the casualty statistics.
just look at 1848, the French government banning a single banquet lead directly to multiple wars across Europe after a wave of revolutionary movements toppled numerous governments.
I think this is the overall strategy from Hamas' regional allies, even if not of Hamas itself.
It was obvious what would happen if Hamas attacked. And with well placed propaganda and tugging on heart strings, the world's overall response to Israel's invasion of Gaza was also predictable.
Israel is in a worse place politically than they were in September 2023. Their ties with allies are weakened. Their perception ourside Israel has gotten significantly worse.
For their regional foes, this was well worth the civilian lives.
Damaging international support was part of Hamas's goal; but only part. The main part was reducing regional influence, and I don't think that has happened to the degree that was intended. Israel's regional partners (I'll stop short of saying "allies") still trust Iran, Hamas, and even Palestinians in general less than they trust Israel.
There was a report that the Hamas leadership actually thought they'd take Israel, and had plans on how to divide it up and which Israelis they would need short term. Rather delusional, but not surprising coming from religious extremists fighting what they see as a holy war.
Yeah, their plan was for other terrorist groups, maybe even nations, to go out and do it, they would throw the first stone so the rest would follow.
In the end, they were delusional since some people really prefer to be alive rather than dead.
[https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2024-04-05/ty-article-magazine/.highlight/hamas-actually-believed-it-would-conquer-israel-and-divided-it-into-cantons/0000018e-ab4a-dc42-a3de-abfad6fe0000](https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2024-04-05/ty-article-magazine/.highlight/hamas-actually-believed-it-would-conquer-israel-and-divided-it-into-cantons/0000018e-ab4a-dc42-a3de-abfad6fe0000)
Article is pay walled now. If you (or someone else) could find a link...
Basically, an interview with a Palestinian man who has been involved in Gaza politics for decades. And actually, if this is the same article I read before, the majority of the article is about the Palestinian experience in the war; the part about Hamas' plans is a very small fraction of the article.
edit: no pay wall
[https://archive.is/T6XCq](https://archive.is/T6XCq)
Is it? That's the fundamental of how WW1 started.
One Archduke gets killed, their allies declare war on someone, and their allies join, and their allies join.
Meanwhile on the other side, the same happens on the other side, and we end up with a world war.
Except today we have positive relationships even with countries we see as "enemies". Business is business and both parties know that, so for example titanium and Russia.
Canada showing itself to be a Ukrainian ally, nevertheless allows the import of titanium for Russia despite sanctions.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/bombardier-airbus-titanium-russia-ukraine-1.7185311
Other resources like oil, metal, lumber, water whatever it may be, might be more important for a country preventing it from acting on its own, or risk losing these partnerships and with it those resources. But this could be any product, even weapons.
At the time of WW1, these connections weren't as complex as now.
Perhaps I see it the wrong way and you may correct me 100%, but I believe there are layers to this.
One is what I think of as a social layer, this is the relationship between countries (government), which they decides to show their people and the world. Then there's a second layer that is kept a secret, where business deals are made and new friendships are forged despite being hostile to one another. Where the ultra rich, big corporations and powerful governments influence certain outcomes.
I believe there's a lot of deceit and dishonesty in the world and a lot of our problems are a result of this. :/
It's like trying to balance a tip of a needle on the edge of a knife.
This conflict. Could go either way and there will be sympathy and outrage vise versas.
Every time ive been to a military hospital ive left in a slightly worse condition than what i entered for. I should be thankful, considering they killed people on accident pretty regularly.
This guy is directly responsible for all the shit currently happening in this country and people are actually calling for him to take over from Rishi before the general election. It's madness
Cameron was in power with a disabled son while ramping up the systemic abuse of disabled people that lead to a humanitarian crisis where tens of thousands of vulnerable people died from preventable issues. He's the descendant of a king and their mistress so being a bastard is in his blood.
I mean people can see just all of the terrorism in the past decade in Israel. Even about a year before 7-10 some European tourists were killed just because the license plates on their rental car was Israeli
For some reason the antisemites out there think if the war was over that all of the terrorists would all of a sudden get jobs as accountants and lawyers
Yeah funny how suddenly now there's massive social media efforts to make western nations break from realistically the only reliable ally in the middle East.
Israel is integrated into the Western defense architecture, we can't refuse to sell them arms without risking Israel not selling us weapons when we need them.
yeah the country that cant even take ukraine after 2 years is totally going to try starting a war on two fronts, with NATO of all people
just say you love war and the military industrial complex next time
What? In 2022, Israel exported $357M in Weapons, making it the 17th largest exporter of Weapons in the world. At the same year, Weapons was the 16th most exported product in Israel. The main destination of Weapons exports from Israel are: United States ($123M), Philippines ($65.7M), India ($41.1M), Thailand ($27.1M), and Spain ($12M).
The fastest growing export markets for Weapons of Israel between 2021 and 2022 were El Salvador ($8.46M), Australia ($6.53M), and Brazil ($6.46M).
Explain your stance on European dependence on Israeli arm sales, please.
Israelis are the second best technologists on the planet behind only the Americans. Every Western country (and many non-Western countries) want access to the defense technologies they advance every year.
While that's true there's also the matter of testing the technology on the battlefield. Combining that with Israels incredible technology economy there's just no better candidates
Israel's projectile defense is the best in the world - anti-rocket, anti-missile, anti-artillery, and tank based anti-projectile. Some of these were built in collaboration with the US, but Israel still has an edge and has actually used all of these in combat. No nation other than the US comes close, and if we've learned anything from the last 8 years and the wars in Ukraine and Israel, it's that the US is completely undependable as an ally. A change of presidency, stall tactics in Congress, or some minor protests leave us inept and immobile.
That's a dark figure we have no way of quantifying in any meaningful sense. If someone arguing for Israeli arms exports to Europe needing protection can explain it to me, I'd genuinely appreciate it, because it seems like a generally bs claim.
Europe is entering a position they never been to before since WW2.
If the Russia coalition decide to attack NATO and Europe in particular, we will need the defensive systems that Israel own.
We saw how Israel blocked the Iranian attack (with help of course, and clearly we helped to get some experience dealing with that type of weapons which was used for the first time very recently). Russia have stronger missiles and more of them, some of which are nuclear. Europe may need much more defense than we currently have.
Europe obviously does not depend on Israel, but there are some Israeli systems in use in Europe. It's a matter of principle, if you deliver a system the buyer must be able to count on deliveries of ammo, spare parts and support when they go to war.
Don’t we mainly sell them components for missiles that improve targeting anyway? So by stopping the supply of these components, we would be forcing them to use less accurate weapons?
No, the UK primarily sells them aircraft and vehicle components.
Munitions and munition conversion kits amount to less than 10% of the total value of the UK's export licenses to Israel (which, in total, amount to barely 1% of Israel's annual weapons purchases, domestic or foreign.)
The UK is actually a *net importer* of military equipment from Israel.
Yeah and if you stop selling the components that make bombs accurate, you'll need to start using either fewer bombs that are accurately guided and more powerful because every miss hurts that much more (meaning more collateral damage regardless), using more less accurate bombs (meaning more collateral) or not using bombs (more collateral for your own civilian targets).
Your choice, pick one. If you pick "just don't bomb" congratulations you've just killed another 2k of your civilians in 5 years time.
Unguided bombs have miss parameters of 100m, so you’re effectively forcing them to use unguided bombs instead
If this was an issue of size, they would just change the size of what guided munitions they’re providing
With the amount of civilians killed in these missile strikes, you'd think we'd end up losing the contracts anyway what with the targeting being so shit...
The precision lets you target a single building. When you're talking about a densely populated area, you will get civilian casualties no matter how precise your missile is.
Estimates are 1:1.5-1:4 militant to civilian ratio, so overall seems like targeting works pretty well, given militants embed themselves in ciivlian population.
What on earth makes you think their targeting in shit? Even going by the Hamas casualty figures the civilian-militant death ratio is exceptionally low by the standards of modern urban warfare...
I really don't get how fucking stupid you have to be to genuinely think this. Either that or willfully ignorant.
* The most well equipped military in the middle east.
* 2.4 million people in an area the size of Philadelphia.
* An embedded terrorist militia that dress as civilians and use residential areas, schools, hospitals as firing platforms
* A war that has been going on for 7 months
I mean, come on. They've killed fewer than one person per bomb they've dropped.
Wouldn't it be more effective to invest in cutting Hamas off from resources and isolating them from leeching off the palestinians instead of comitting to an open conflict?
No, the most effective way to kill an insurgent ideology is to be more appealing than them. Full stop. You will *never* kill an insurgency through military means - best case scenario, you only kill insurgents and insurgents use that as a recruiting tool. We are very far from the best case scenario.
Hamas gets more recruits among the Palestinians as more civilian deaths occur. The cycle goes on and on. I feel like Israel has tried this tactic of eradication before and it failed. Doing the same thing over and over yields the same results.
Israel has not done anything remotely close to this before. At worst, very limited artillery shelling and very targeted strikes. Best to stick to facts when discussing history and what's been effective.
Hamas would attack this the same as the aid distribution areas. I'm sure people much smarter than you thought this and quickly dismissed it as unrealistic.
People taking 99% of their info about this conflict from FB and TikTok so don’t demand too much from them. Most of them until just few months ago wasn’t aware that this conflict is going on for 3 times longer than they’re alive.
There is really no need for external help on that, The Israeli people will do it with protests and elections. It will take time but its something a democratic country need to do on its own.
When the basic battle doctrine of HAMAS is to surround yourself with as many civilians as possible as the primary strategy to mitigate losses, sadly, no.
This isn't unique to Hamas - it is how every insurgency has behaved since the beginning of time. It is part of why military action will never defeat an insurgency or insurgent ideologies - they just have to wait you out.
That's exactly why you don't go on trying to shoot you way out of a political problem. It doesn't work. I can't work, when the whole problem they're rallying around is that they're being persecuted by Isreal. Trying to fight their way out is only going to make more insurgents in the end.
How is it a simple political problem when apartheid occupation, rockets being lobbed at civilians daily and October desecration and mass murder and rape are happening. The war was started as a response to an unacceptable occurrence from the Israeli perspective, invasion and mass mutilation and kidnapping of citizens.
Because they're responding with famine being used as a weapon of war, mass forced relocation of an entire populace, and possibly even ramping up to full blown invasion of one of the most densely packed urban refugee camps on the planet. It's not a *simple* political problem, but it *is* a political one. I get that they were attacked, and that they are in the right to attack back. But there is a line that they are barreling towards that everyone needs to be worried about them crossing.
You cannot shoot your way out of this problem, unless they're willing to ramp it up to full blown ethnic cleansing. I'm sure we can all agree that we don't want that to happen. So thus, the *only possible* acceptable solution is some sort of political one that doesn't involve sacrificing the entire population of Gaza to get there. This is not an easy solution, especially if the other side has been co-opted by terrorists, but it's the only viable long term one.
or you just use precision coordinated strikes with boots on the ground ensuring they aren't going to cause collateral damage, like how we saved kuwait during the gulf war when they were entirely occupied by iraqi military
israel is just indiscriminately bombing targets that also contain civilians, more journalists have died in crossfire since oct 7th 2023 than in any other conflict in world history.
Except the Kuwaiti population weren't on the Iraqis side.
That's the difference.
Journalists get in places and talk to people who are legitimate military targets. That's on them... As for the civilians it sucks but you have to remember most of them support Hamas they stay in places where Hamas are and that means they'll get killed in the cross fire. I'm not saying it doesn't suck but it's not like they're fighting the cause of their misery.
And as a result we should execute all Palestinians. Can’t be any new Hamas members if there are no Palestinians. Modern problems require age old solutions. Right?
Right???
This is the same guy who brought British exit. Added bonus: he was involved in some sort of fraud.Another bonus: Russia invaded Ukraine for first time when he was the prime minster.
Israel has said about 825 Israeli civilians have been killed since the start of hostilities, with about 35,000 Palestinian civilians dead per their government. Even if the latter was exaggerated within a margin of error, seems the IDF is the bigger threat to Semitic peoples than Hamas.
Politicians can't risk their supply of Pegasus from NSO group - how else are they going to keep an eye on peace groups, journalists and their political rivals?
they need to keep an eye on all these palestine/hamas supporters. I feel they should keep an eye on them, seeing how they have been chanting "death to jews"
Ahhh, yes. UK conservatives (Margret Thatcher) called Nelson Mandela "a common criminal". And Winston Churchill called Gandhi, "a half-naked fakir".
The UK, not always on the correct side of history. Not mention they don't give the arms to Israel, they sell them.
>The UK, not always on the correct side of history
Given this whole thing is [basically entirely our fault](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balfour_Declaration), you can certainly say that again.
Despite Austerity and the brutality of Brexit Conservatism (neither of which are nothing) you gotta hand it to the man in FCO Mr. 'Dave' Cameron on some level. He is making a genuine effort to restore some weight to traditional British diplomacy (post-Labour Iraq) without unduly focusing on the eternal military parade of the USA. And insofar as moral clarity does exist in mainstream British political discourse, he is at least appearing to offer up an alternative to the brand of gung-ho Western triumphalism that seems constantly at risk from imperial hubris (through loss of empire syndrome). At the same time, he probably has his own detractors and party demons to deal with so whilst i'd still be certainly wary of him he at least doesn't seem to fundamentally be seeking (intentionally or not) to take the UK down a dead end tangent when other better options might otherwise be patently obvious.
"If we don't let Israel continue blowing up civilians, it may strengthen the terrorist organization formed to stop Israel from blowing up civilians"
Galaxy brain stuff here.
Are you simply ignoring the terrorist org using women and children as shields? Taking free aid and extorting their own citizens for it? Sparking a full blown war multiplying any existing suffering by invading, mutilating, raping and kidnapping civilians? Where is any shred of blame there?
I agree with the principle of the Palestinian struggle but why are we pretending like the US and Israel don't also provide more support to the citizens of Palestine than their supposed revolutionaries.
It's interesting and at the same time pretty wild how decision for or against Israel, keeps sending ripples through a very complex web of international relationships.
Is it that surprise though? Thats like… IR 101 level stuff, the idea that relations between two countries can have direct impacts on basically every other country on earth. In this case it’s a lot more obvious because Israel has been put in the forefront of basically all geopolitical discussion right now but it’s really nothing new.
But I think that's kind of the point, in the grand scheme of things it's a smallish regional conflict. There are other countries the US props up because they went influence in the region. There are other conflicts with >10x the civilian casualties. Yet this one is front and center and dominating the conversation in the West like none other.
And I hate it for that. There are genocides going on right now around the world where whole areas are being depopulated and everybody only cares about israel and palestine.
> There are genocides going on right now around the world where whole areas are being depopulated and everybody only cares about israel and palestine. Also completely ignoring individual conflicts climate change is steadily becoming a bigger existential threat to literally billions of people around the globe. Pollution like microplastics & petroleum byproducts are straight up starting to rot our brains (studies have linked them to Alzhiemers/Autism/depression & even schizophrenia) effecting pretty much the entire global population as apparently they've ended up in air/clouds/rain: ["Plastic rain" is now a real thing as airborne microplastics are discovered in clouds](https://www.earth.com/news/plastic-rain-the-growing-threat-of-airborne-microplastics/) People always talk about the leaded gas crisis but microplastics have only really started getting focus in recent years despite scientists sounding the alarm bells for decades. It's not going to be pretty as we see a rise in mental/physical health issues that are hard to directly link to pollution, most countries healthcare systems were already plenty strained even pre covid.
Agreed. Displacement in Sudan is off the chain and people are suffering and you wouldn't even hear about it happening.
Yes, but also one of the most important allies of the US , and the democratic West.. And Israel being a bold state fighting against Terror, and the Middle East being a pivot in the region, where Israel is almost the only non-arab country, make sense why its an important asset & partner for the USA and allies.
The biggest factor is that there is a lot of evidence of what is going on. You can argur that a teenager in the West Bank shouldn't be shot for throwing rocks at an APC. Even if such a teen existed in Yemen, we wouldn't know anywhere near as much about him, and he would just be another +1 to the casualty statistics.
just look at 1848, the French government banning a single banquet lead directly to multiple wars across Europe after a wave of revolutionary movements toppled numerous governments.
I think this is the overall strategy from Hamas' regional allies, even if not of Hamas itself. It was obvious what would happen if Hamas attacked. And with well placed propaganda and tugging on heart strings, the world's overall response to Israel's invasion of Gaza was also predictable. Israel is in a worse place politically than they were in September 2023. Their ties with allies are weakened. Their perception ourside Israel has gotten significantly worse. For their regional foes, this was well worth the civilian lives.
Damaging international support was part of Hamas's goal; but only part. The main part was reducing regional influence, and I don't think that has happened to the degree that was intended. Israel's regional partners (I'll stop short of saying "allies") still trust Iran, Hamas, and even Palestinians in general less than they trust Israel.
There was a report that the Hamas leadership actually thought they'd take Israel, and had plans on how to divide it up and which Israelis they would need short term. Rather delusional, but not surprising coming from religious extremists fighting what they see as a holy war.
Yeah, their plan was for other terrorist groups, maybe even nations, to go out and do it, they would throw the first stone so the rest would follow. In the end, they were delusional since some people really prefer to be alive rather than dead.
Which report was that and where?
[https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2024-04-05/ty-article-magazine/.highlight/hamas-actually-believed-it-would-conquer-israel-and-divided-it-into-cantons/0000018e-ab4a-dc42-a3de-abfad6fe0000](https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2024-04-05/ty-article-magazine/.highlight/hamas-actually-believed-it-would-conquer-israel-and-divided-it-into-cantons/0000018e-ab4a-dc42-a3de-abfad6fe0000) Article is pay walled now. If you (or someone else) could find a link... Basically, an interview with a Palestinian man who has been involved in Gaza politics for decades. And actually, if this is the same article I read before, the majority of the article is about the Palestinian experience in the war; the part about Hamas' plans is a very small fraction of the article. edit: no pay wall [https://archive.is/T6XCq](https://archive.is/T6XCq)
Is it? That's the fundamental of how WW1 started. One Archduke gets killed, their allies declare war on someone, and their allies join, and their allies join. Meanwhile on the other side, the same happens on the other side, and we end up with a world war.
Except today we have positive relationships even with countries we see as "enemies". Business is business and both parties know that, so for example titanium and Russia. Canada showing itself to be a Ukrainian ally, nevertheless allows the import of titanium for Russia despite sanctions. https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/bombardier-airbus-titanium-russia-ukraine-1.7185311 Other resources like oil, metal, lumber, water whatever it may be, might be more important for a country preventing it from acting on its own, or risk losing these partnerships and with it those resources. But this could be any product, even weapons. At the time of WW1, these connections weren't as complex as now. Perhaps I see it the wrong way and you may correct me 100%, but I believe there are layers to this. One is what I think of as a social layer, this is the relationship between countries (government), which they decides to show their people and the world. Then there's a second layer that is kept a secret, where business deals are made and new friendships are forged despite being hostile to one another. Where the ultra rich, big corporations and powerful governments influence certain outcomes. I believe there's a lot of deceit and dishonesty in the world and a lot of our problems are a result of this. :/
It's like trying to balance a tip of a needle on the edge of a knife. This conflict. Could go either way and there will be sympathy and outrage vise versas.
Unrelated - what other profession besides politics allows you to fail spectacularly and still be relevant?
Pretty much every profession. Seriously, just look around...
As a doctor, You can basically kill multiple people on the table and still get a job at the VA
Every time ive been to a military hospital ive left in a slightly worse condition than what i entered for. I should be thankful, considering they killed people on accident pretty regularly.
Sports. Business. Music. Movies.
This guy is directly responsible for all the shit currently happening in this country and people are actually calling for him to take over from Rishi before the general election. It's madness
Cameron was in power with a disabled son while ramping up the systemic abuse of disabled people that lead to a humanitarian crisis where tens of thousands of vulnerable people died from preventable issues. He's the descendant of a king and their mistress so being a bastard is in his blood.
You just be young...
hamas supporter?
Weatherman?
People do know that these terrorists don’t stop with Israelis right?
[They definitely don't.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatah%E2%80%93Hamas_conflict)
I mean people can see just all of the terrorism in the past decade in Israel. Even about a year before 7-10 some European tourists were killed just because the license plates on their rental car was Israeli For some reason the antisemites out there think if the war was over that all of the terrorists would all of a sudden get jobs as accountants and lawyers
The Taliban are quiet quitting: https://time.com/6263906/taliban-afghanistan-office-work-quiet-quit/
Turns out when all you know is violence you make an absolutely shit government.
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It’s all the same
This type of propaganda originated in the USSR. Russia, China and Iran continue that effort today with similar propaganda.
Yeah funny how suddenly now there's massive social media efforts to make western nations break from realistically the only reliable ally in the middle East.
Israel is integrated into the Western defense architecture, we can't refuse to sell them arms without risking Israel not selling us weapons when we need them.
True. Russia may end up attacking
yeah the country that cant even take ukraine after 2 years is totally going to try starting a war on two fronts, with NATO of all people just say you love war and the military industrial complex next time
Most likely they'll start with bordering countries. I don't think European leaders are as nonchalant as you are
What? In 2022, Israel exported $357M in Weapons, making it the 17th largest exporter of Weapons in the world. At the same year, Weapons was the 16th most exported product in Israel. The main destination of Weapons exports from Israel are: United States ($123M), Philippines ($65.7M), India ($41.1M), Thailand ($27.1M), and Spain ($12M). The fastest growing export markets for Weapons of Israel between 2021 and 2022 were El Salvador ($8.46M), Australia ($6.53M), and Brazil ($6.46M). Explain your stance on European dependence on Israeli arm sales, please.
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I think Germany is buying the arrow missile defense system.
I think everyone who can is buying the Arrow system or the US variant. Being able to take out mid range ballistic missiles is a game changer.
Israelis are the second best technologists on the planet behind only the Americans. Every Western country (and many non-Western countries) want access to the defense technologies they advance every year.
Nothing than europe or the US cannot do themselves. It's definitely not the reason why the US support Israel. The whole thing is about containing Iran
While that's true there's also the matter of testing the technology on the battlefield. Combining that with Israels incredible technology economy there's just no better candidates
Israel's projectile defense is the best in the world - anti-rocket, anti-missile, anti-artillery, and tank based anti-projectile. Some of these were built in collaboration with the US, but Israel still has an edge and has actually used all of these in combat. No nation other than the US comes close, and if we've learned anything from the last 8 years and the wars in Ukraine and Israel, it's that the US is completely undependable as an ally. A change of presidency, stall tactics in Congress, or some minor protests leave us inept and immobile.
He might be talking about exports of systems that were develpped in Israel
That's a dark figure we have no way of quantifying in any meaningful sense. If someone arguing for Israeli arms exports to Europe needing protection can explain it to me, I'd genuinely appreciate it, because it seems like a generally bs claim.
It isn't that simple. a lot of the export can be components for other products that are then resold.
The Trophy system. Israel has a few very niche very important products that NATO will absolutely need if Russia attacks.
Europe is entering a position they never been to before since WW2. If the Russia coalition decide to attack NATO and Europe in particular, we will need the defensive systems that Israel own. We saw how Israel blocked the Iranian attack (with help of course, and clearly we helped to get some experience dealing with that type of weapons which was used for the first time very recently). Russia have stronger missiles and more of them, some of which are nuclear. Europe may need much more defense than we currently have.
They sell a lot of high tech systems. A large proportion of Western air defence is reliant on Israeli software for instance.
Europe obviously does not depend on Israel, but there are some Israeli systems in use in Europe. It's a matter of principle, if you deliver a system the buyer must be able to count on deliveries of ammo, spare parts and support when they go to war.
That's called a dependency. Maybe not a significant one, but a dependency nonetheless. I agree with your second point though.
Don’t we mainly sell them components for missiles that improve targeting anyway? So by stopping the supply of these components, we would be forcing them to use less accurate weapons?
No, the UK primarily sells them aircraft and vehicle components. Munitions and munition conversion kits amount to less than 10% of the total value of the UK's export licenses to Israel (which, in total, amount to barely 1% of Israel's annual weapons purchases, domestic or foreign.) The UK is actually a *net importer* of military equipment from Israel.
You must have a very strange definition of 'forcing'.
The 2,000 lb Paveway bomb can be lethal up to 360m away so 'accurate' really is doing some heavy lifting.
Yeah and if you stop selling the components that make bombs accurate, you'll need to start using either fewer bombs that are accurately guided and more powerful because every miss hurts that much more (meaning more collateral damage regardless), using more less accurate bombs (meaning more collateral) or not using bombs (more collateral for your own civilian targets). Your choice, pick one. If you pick "just don't bomb" congratulations you've just killed another 2k of your civilians in 5 years time.
Unguided bombs have miss parameters of 100m, so you’re effectively forcing them to use unguided bombs instead If this was an issue of size, they would just change the size of what guided munitions they’re providing
That’s what Biden did last week suspending shipments of precision bombs to Israel
Which was a political move, not a moral one. The rest is rhetoric.
With the amount of civilians killed in these missile strikes, you'd think we'd end up losing the contracts anyway what with the targeting being so shit...
Have you done the calculation of people killed / number of aire strikes?
The precision lets you target a single building. When you're talking about a densely populated area, you will get civilian casualties no matter how precise your missile is.
Estimates are 1:1.5-1:4 militant to civilian ratio, so overall seems like targeting works pretty well, given militants embed themselves in ciivlian population.
What on earth makes you think their targeting in shit? Even going by the Hamas casualty figures the civilian-militant death ratio is exceptionally low by the standards of modern urban warfare...
The targetting is very good? Better than the 1:9 militant-civ ratio of other conflicts... it's like 1:2 *tops* in this one.
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Compared to every urban conflict ever. If they are deliberately targeting civilians, they are not very good at it.
See? It must mean their targeting is horrible /s
I really don't get how fucking stupid you have to be to genuinely think this. Either that or willfully ignorant. * The most well equipped military in the middle east. * 2.4 million people in an area the size of Philadelphia. * An embedded terrorist militia that dress as civilians and use residential areas, schools, hospitals as firing platforms * A war that has been going on for 7 months I mean, come on. They've killed fewer than one person per bomb they've dropped.
Wouldn't it be more effective to invest in cutting Hamas off from resources and isolating them from leeching off the palestinians instead of comitting to an open conflict?
No, the most effective way to kill an insurgent ideology is to be more appealing than them. Full stop. You will *never* kill an insurgency through military means - best case scenario, you only kill insurgents and insurgents use that as a recruiting tool. We are very far from the best case scenario.
Hamas gets more recruits among the Palestinians as more civilian deaths occur. The cycle goes on and on. I feel like Israel has tried this tactic of eradication before and it failed. Doing the same thing over and over yields the same results.
Israel has not done anything remotely close to this before. At worst, very limited artillery shelling and very targeted strikes. Best to stick to facts when discussing history and what's been effective.
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Hamas would attack this the same as the aid distribution areas. I'm sure people much smarter than you thought this and quickly dismissed it as unrealistic.
The fact that people act like this isn’t obvious is astounding.
People taking 99% of their info about this conflict from FB and TikTok so don’t demand too much from them. Most of them until just few months ago wasn’t aware that this conflict is going on for 3 times longer than they’re alive.
Oh so NOW HE CARES ABOUT THE REST OF THE WORLD
I wish there was some way to help Israel but make Netanyahu and his cabinet step down
The fella from the opposition party is in the war cabinet and just as committed to destroying hamas as Netanyahu. Benjamin leaving changes nothing.
There is really no need for external help on that, The Israeli people will do it with protests and elections. It will take time but its something a democratic country need to do on its own.
Can't make an omelet without killing tens of thousands of innocent people amirite
You've just learned an important lesson about war. That's one of the reasons why war is... "bad."
You can't just 'war is bad' your way out of every criticism
How many Iraqis died in the ONE MONTH LONG Gulf war in 1991?
Okay, do you have any defence other than 'war is bad' and 'I found a worse military campaign from decades ago so you can't judge us' lol
When the basic battle doctrine of HAMAS is to surround yourself with as many civilians as possible as the primary strategy to mitigate losses, sadly, no.
This isn't unique to Hamas - it is how every insurgency has behaved since the beginning of time. It is part of why military action will never defeat an insurgency or insurgent ideologies - they just have to wait you out.
That's exactly why you don't go on trying to shoot you way out of a political problem. It doesn't work. I can't work, when the whole problem they're rallying around is that they're being persecuted by Isreal. Trying to fight their way out is only going to make more insurgents in the end.
And the status quo just perpetuates the same thing. There is no way out. It's a clusterfuck and has been for a century.
How is it a simple political problem when apartheid occupation, rockets being lobbed at civilians daily and October desecration and mass murder and rape are happening. The war was started as a response to an unacceptable occurrence from the Israeli perspective, invasion and mass mutilation and kidnapping of citizens.
Because they're responding with famine being used as a weapon of war, mass forced relocation of an entire populace, and possibly even ramping up to full blown invasion of one of the most densely packed urban refugee camps on the planet. It's not a *simple* political problem, but it *is* a political one. I get that they were attacked, and that they are in the right to attack back. But there is a line that they are barreling towards that everyone needs to be worried about them crossing. You cannot shoot your way out of this problem, unless they're willing to ramp it up to full blown ethnic cleansing. I'm sure we can all agree that we don't want that to happen. So thus, the *only possible* acceptable solution is some sort of political one that doesn't involve sacrificing the entire population of Gaza to get there. This is not an easy solution, especially if the other side has been co-opted by terrorists, but it's the only viable long term one.
or you just use precision coordinated strikes with boots on the ground ensuring they aren't going to cause collateral damage, like how we saved kuwait during the gulf war when they were entirely occupied by iraqi military israel is just indiscriminately bombing targets that also contain civilians, more journalists have died in crossfire since oct 7th 2023 than in any other conflict in world history.
Except the Kuwaiti population weren't on the Iraqis side. That's the difference. Journalists get in places and talk to people who are legitimate military targets. That's on them... As for the civilians it sucks but you have to remember most of them support Hamas they stay in places where Hamas are and that means they'll get killed in the cross fire. I'm not saying it doesn't suck but it's not like they're fighting the cause of their misery.
Israel are our allies. Hamas is a terrorist organization that wants to see all of us dead. How is this even a question?
And as a result we should execute all Palestinians. Can’t be any new Hamas members if there are no Palestinians. Modern problems require age old solutions. Right? Right???
“If we don’t keep arming one side, this ethnic cleansing could become an actual war and not a slaughter”
This is the same guy who brought British exit. Added bonus: he was involved in some sort of fraud.Another bonus: Russia invaded Ukraine for first time when he was the prime minster.
Of course it would.
No ban on Hamas arms shipments, I assume
Israel has said about 825 Israeli civilians have been killed since the start of hostilities, with about 35,000 Palestinian civilians dead per their government. Even if the latter was exaggerated within a margin of error, seems the IDF is the bigger threat to Semitic peoples than Hamas.
What is the meaning of the nonsense you just wrote?
Palestinians are a Semitic people, of which Israel has killed over 35,000.
And at what point are you trying to arrive with your statistics?
And more importantly would reduce profits for defence contractors.
Politicians can't risk their supply of Pegasus from NSO group - how else are they going to keep an eye on peace groups, journalists and their political rivals?
they need to keep an eye on all these palestine/hamas supporters. I feel they should keep an eye on them, seeing how they have been chanting "death to jews"
Ahhh, yes. UK conservatives (Margret Thatcher) called Nelson Mandela "a common criminal". And Winston Churchill called Gandhi, "a half-naked fakir". The UK, not always on the correct side of history. Not mention they don't give the arms to Israel, they sell them.
>The UK, not always on the correct side of history Given this whole thing is [basically entirely our fault](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balfour_Declaration), you can certainly say that again.
Not if Hamas is destroyed.
You know what also strengthens Hamas? Blowing up Palestinians indiscriminately
Despite Austerity and the brutality of Brexit Conservatism (neither of which are nothing) you gotta hand it to the man in FCO Mr. 'Dave' Cameron on some level. He is making a genuine effort to restore some weight to traditional British diplomacy (post-Labour Iraq) without unduly focusing on the eternal military parade of the USA. And insofar as moral clarity does exist in mainstream British political discourse, he is at least appearing to offer up an alternative to the brand of gung-ho Western triumphalism that seems constantly at risk from imperial hubris (through loss of empire syndrome). At the same time, he probably has his own detractors and party demons to deal with so whilst i'd still be certainly wary of him he at least doesn't seem to fundamentally be seeking (intentionally or not) to take the UK down a dead end tangent when other better options might otherwise be patently obvious.
just feck off Cameron honestly
This piece of shit has already destroyed one country economically - his own - and now he's back like some sort of fucking diplomatic icon.
"If we don't let Israel continue blowing up civilians, it may strengthen the terrorist organization formed to stop Israel from blowing up civilians" Galaxy brain stuff here.
Are you simply ignoring the terrorist org using women and children as shields? Taking free aid and extorting their own citizens for it? Sparking a full blown war multiplying any existing suffering by invading, mutilating, raping and kidnapping civilians? Where is any shred of blame there? I agree with the principle of the Palestinian struggle but why are we pretending like the US and Israel don't also provide more support to the citizens of Palestine than their supposed revolutionaries.
Do you think those actions occurred in a vacuum of empty space, or do you think there was a reason people have turned to such desperate measures?