Israel-Hamas War 2023

[Razgovory]

Israel is the most significant recipient of US foreign aid, having received some $263bn between 1946 and 2023.

I wonder how much Israel got in 1946.

[grumbler]

The Green Book does not break out aid to Israel separately from the world data until 1951, so specifics before that are not readily available.

[Iormlund]

I doubt withdrawing economic aid would actually help lower civilian losses.

The IDF would simply use cheaper weapons (more arty and conventional bombs vs precision ones). They would also probable speed up operations to get their people to their civilian jobs faster. And that would mean more civilian losses, not less. Finally, it would remove the last bit of leverage anyone has over them. Biden is behind all the ceasefire negotiations.

[Tamas]

The apparent ferocity by which Hamas is defending it seems to indicate this was more than just a hospital.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/mar/18/clashes-idf-hamas-israel-takes-control-key-al-shifa-hospital

[The Minsky Moment]

Israel is the most significant recipient of US foreign aid, having received some $263bn between 1946 and 2023.

I wonder how much Israel got in 1946.

None, it didn't exist yet.

[Razgovory]

That was my point.

[HVC]

That was my point.

I don't either, where's my money

[Josquius]

The Oscars business going on.
Jesus that response. So amazingly brain dead. Kind of Putinesque in the whole "we know you know we are talking bollocks but what you gonna do about it. Make a peep and you're an anti semite"
Really misses an open goal too in calling out the Israeli =Jewish thing.

[OttoVonBismarck]

I doubt withdrawing economic aid would actually help lower civilian losses.

The IDF would simply use cheaper weapons (more arty and conventional bombs vs precision ones). They would also probable speed up operations to get their people to their civilian jobs faster. And that would mean more civilian losses, not less. Finally, it would remove the last bit of leverage anyone has over them. Biden is behind all the ceasefire negotiations.

This is an argument an author in FP made, that Israel likely becomes more dangerous and violent if the U.S. cuts off aid--for one, in the immediate sense that ends America's significant leverage on Israel. It leaves us with an Israel whose population is still vehemently opposed to making peace whilst Hamas remains in control of Gaza and holds hostages. Recent evidence has shown no regime on earth can meaningfully be stopped from getting weapons--there are always people willing to sell.

There will never be actual Western intervention militarily against Israel, nor does any form of Arab intervention seem remotely possible. Israel would then almost certainly feel pressure to escalate dramatically, probably conduct its Rafah clearing operation, and declare some form of victory.

It is a false narrative that the U.S. with the stroke of a pen can make Israel stop fighting a war.

[grumbler]

That was my point.

The statement was "between 1946 and 2024" not "from 1946 to 2024."  The data aggregation used might not have distinguished by year, so the (say) 1946-1950 total would have included 1946 by default even if no money went to a country that did not exist in 1946. 

[Tamas]

The Oscars business going on.
Jesus that response. So amazingly brain dead. Kind of Putinesque in the whole "we know you know we are talking bollocks but what you gonna do about it. Make a peep and you're an anti semite"
Really misses an open goal too in calling out the Israeli =Jewish thing.

I haven't heard anything about the Oscars, what happened? They failed to demand a ceasefire?

[Josquius]

The Oscars business going on.
Jesus that response. So amazingly brain dead. Kind of Putinesque in the whole "we know you know we are talking bollocks but what you gonna do about it. Make a peep and you're an anti semite"
Really misses an open goal too in calling out the Israeli =Jewish thing.

I haven't heard anything about the Oscars, what happened? They failed to demand a ceasefire?

Jonathan Glazer. Jewish director of Zone of Interest won an award and said.

"All our choices were made to reflect and confront us in the present, not to say look what they did then, but rather look what we do now," he said, according to the Academy's official transcript of the speech. "Our film shows where dehumanization leads at its worst. It's shaped all of our past and present. Right now, we stand here as men who refute their Jewishness and the Holocaust being hijacked by an occupation which has led to conflict for so many innocent people. Whether the victims of October — whether the victims of October the 7th in Israel or the ongoing attack on Gaza, all the victims of this dehumanization, how do we resist?"

Plenty that could be criticised about the speech but rather than a sensible response instead we get an angry letter from a group packed with massive ignorance/misinformation and stuff which just highlights his point.

"We refute our Jewishness being hijacked for the purpose of drawing a moral equivalence between a Nazi regime that sought to exterminate a race of people and an Israeli nation that seeks to avert its own extermination," the open letter state

The use of words like 'occupation' to describe an indigenous Jewish people defending a homeland that dates back thousands of years and has been recognized as a state by the United Nations, distorts history."

The first paragraph  is largely fair enough, a nazi comparison is harsh, though the context wasn't out of nowhere - it's a Jewish guy who just got an award for a Holocaust film, so kind of a forced comparison.

But then it goes down hill. Israel is just trying to stop it's own extermination? Indigenous Jewish people defending a homeland that dates back thousands of years. Fucking hell. That's exactly the kind of shit that makes it really hard to stay neutral.

[celedhring]

Glazer could have phrased that waaaay better. I understand what he's getting at, gotta understand the lessons of the past and not seeing the humanity in the "other" will always lead to tragedy, but a parallel with the nazis was always going to go up like a lead balloon, and deservedly so.

The backlash he's getting seems really excessive, though, and the letter is weird.

[Admiral Yi]

It is a false narrative that the U.S. with the stroke of a pen can make Israel stop fighting a war.

Probably not.  But the US did end apartheid in South Africa more or less with the stroke of a pen.

[Admiral Yi]

But then it goes down hill. Israel is just trying to stop it's own extermination?

That's a defensible characterization of the October 7 attack and the Israeli response.