Israel vs. Gaza round 99

[kuronosan]

i mean they professed that both were the same because she refused to distance herself from biden, never endorsed an arms embargo, and repeatedly went "yeah 40,000 lost palestinian lives were bad but WHAT ABOUT ISRAELI LIVES"

she had infinite chances to give abstainers/trump-voters a chance to vote for her and she never did. they wanted one thing, she wanted their votes, and she could not, for the life of her, articulate that. and therefore they had no reason to believe it would be any different by voting for her - though some did get lulled into thinking trump would change things.

What? You really think that fundamentally things would be the same with Gaza as they are now under Trump?

I'm sorry that you can't seem to understand nuance that it's okay to lament the loss of lives on both sides while trying to find a better solution.

It's myopic that people excuse single issue voters from responsibility of being ignorant to other important issues but ostracize Trump voters for the same shit. I loathe Trump and everything we have to deal with and I really hope MAGA dies alone on a hill with piss raining down on their heads, but this is the same reason people voted for him.

[kisada]

not at all what i said

[Salodin]

not at all what i said

My post isn't directed at you, it's a general "you" lol

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[kisada]

in all honesty i hope you guys find whatever you need

for different reasons, each

[Byrthnoth]

If Kamala was there, stuff would have drifted back towards sensibility simply because Joe Biden was holding such strongly conflicting and calcified views on human rights and Israel's treatment of Gaza that there's almost no way anyone under 80 could hope to match him. Even if she held exactly the same beliefs, which seems unlikely, there's no way to so successfully ward off reality without 80+ years of hubris built up.

It's really hard to overemphasize how bad Biden was for both the Gazans and the Israelis. The Gazans were obviously killed due to his inaction and don't really need much more treatment, but the Israeli case is more interesting. If you rank human rights atrocities of the last 100 years, Israel has a few slots at this point and this particular round of the Israel Gaza conflict is really climbing the ranks. The minute security improvements gained by continuing to brutalize Gaza have not been worth the damage to the international Israeli brand. Forcing Bibi to stop a few months after October 7th would have been a longterm boon to the Israeli people. Instead, Bibi has successfully distinguished Israel and Judaism in the US popular culture and has turned one of the two US political parties against Israeli. Now that popular opinion of Israel in the US is coming more in line with the EU, at some point in the future they're likely to be stripped of billions of dollars per year of US military support. And for what?

If Biden had shut it down after the initial brutalizing wave, which there's a good chance he could have, Israel 20 years hence would have probably been a better, more secure place to live. Instead, recent reporting indicates that he didn't really even try and has a lot of blood on his hands.

[Byrthnoth]

I'm not really sure whether a one-state solution like Trump appears to be in favor of and Bibi seems to be acting on is actually worse than Biden's preferred state of perpetual indecision/seasonal war. However, if we had a sane president then we probably wouldn't be shipping the pointy end of bombs to Gazan kids via a third country.

[Mrbeansman]

The idea that Bibi needs US weapons to continue the Genocide is so catastrophicly stupid. There are other places they can go to.

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[Rhyis.]

The void from when the US was sending Ukraine weapons needs to be filled somehow. Bucks are bucks

[Byrthnoth]

The point isn't that they can't buy weapons, but that it will cost them $ instead of getting it shoveled to them by the US government for the low low price of occasionally also getting some fetallio by a US political leader. Like, Bibi has to fly to DC once every few years and on exchange we give them about 4 billion dollars a year (for scale, nearly 1% of their GDP). I would happily fly to Israel once every 4 years of they paid me >10bil for it.

[kisada]

If Kamala was there, stuff would have drifted back towards sensibility simply because Joe Biden was holding such strongly conflicting and calcified views on human rights and Israel's treatment of Gaza that there's almost no way anyone under 80 could hope to match him. Even if she held exactly the same beliefs, which seems unlikely, there's no way to so successfully ward off reality without 80+ years of hubris built up.

i'm in general agreement with you, here

i mean, a VERY large part of me is like "yeah i'm mega out on a limb there and i'm seriously just speculating when i can't truly know." but that hopeful part of me was why i gave her the benefit of the doubt in that regard - let alone ALL the other stuff.

others, though, didn't. and it feels very clear to me why, given her words and stance on the whole thing to begin with.

[Gredival]

FMS (foreign military sales) and DCS (direct commercial sales) are heavily regulated. Businesses permitted to perform DCS must sell at the same rate the US pays for the weapons and FMS are sold at the rate the US paid for the weapons (even if the weapons have depreciated in value since then).

Military aid during a conflict comes in monetary form that is usually sent back to us through FMS or into our private economy through DCS. It basically works the same way USAid does (did? I forgot where we landed on that) where it's not just free money because it necessarily gets directed back to our economy. Functionally speaking, these are gov't sponsored stimulus buys in a Keynesian model.

The problem is usually that our DIB needs a long build-up time for weapons. It is so extensive, and the cost of producing with no customer so severe, that there needs to be solidified demand in a government contract or a clear demand signal for them to invest in production of any particular arms and munitions.

[Cyn]

Not so much for small arms. M4 rifles are made by the same machines that produce AR15s over here, and the companies that produce more exotic stuff like LMGs mostly just sell to militaries around the world as needed. Having enough bar stock or billet on hand to get started while the details are worked out isn't really that big of a deal. The company I work for agreed verbally to make 20k parts using the manufacturer's steel for a certain weapon and we had the steel for 10K parts sitting in our shop before the contract was signed.

Ammo is even easier, I think. AFAIK Lake City never really slows down production, it just gets cheaper for civilians when there's not a war soaking up stock.

[Gredival]

Not so much for small arms. M4 rifles are made by the same machines that produce AR15s over here, and the companies that produce more exotic stuff like LMGs mostly just sell to militaries around the world as needed. Having enough bar stock or billet on hand to get started while the details are worked out isn't really that big of a deal. The company I work for agreed verbally to make 20k parts using the manufacturer's steel for a certain weapon and we had the steel for 10K parts sitting in our shop before the contract was signed.

Ammo is even easier, I think. AFAIK Lake City never really slows down production, it just gets cheaper for civilians when there's not a war soaking up stock.

Sure but that's not the big stuff that people are saying is "enabling" Israel to conduct this campaign. I'm talking about the significant stuff here like missiles and assault batteries.

[6souls]

https://x.com/sentdefender/status/1925588170311098872

Targeting one building with a 500m radius of error

[Byrthnoth]

https://www.reuters.com/world/middle...ng-2025-05-22/

This guy was probably antisemitic, because he targeted likely-Jewish people. However, his rhetoric is anti-Israeli and he happened to kill a (half?) Israeli couple. I haven't seen the news article generate the kind of crazy recriminations and statements of support that it would have two years ago.

Bibi has really torched so much good will and lost Israel's special place in the American socio-political pantheon.

PS. Every article I have read about them has said they were "going to be engaged soon." MFers everyone in a relationship is pre-engagement until they are engaged wtf is that.

[NotGreyheim]

https://www.reuters.com/world/middle...ng-2025-05-22/

PS. Every article I have read about them has said they were "going to be engaged soon." MFers everyone in a relationship is pre-engagement until they are engaged wtf is that.

No no, you don't understand. They were to be engaged """"soon"""" ™

[Tymon]

World's smallest violin playing extra hard tonight for two MAGA Israelis getting their due comeuppance

Free Palestine

[archibaldcrane]

Presented without comment

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[Outlaw]

It's our turn to burn down all the mosques I guess.

/s

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[archibaldcrane]

https://twitter.com/KashifMD/status/...baEyVDE6g&s=19

Former Israeli prime minister from 2006-2009.

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