And that was their mistake. Now, it may be too late to start the policy.
Attention? Maybe. Money? Hard to see how. Weaponry? Not in any remotely meaningful way. For starters Israel is more than capable of supplying itself with its own weapons, a policy it decided upon pursuing in the 1960s when faced with embargos on arms from its European suppliers. Israel’s defense industry is one of the most highly developed in the world, and domestically produces everything from small arms to the most advanced main battle tanks. They are also not supplying any of those weapons to Ukraine, Netanyahu refused Ukrainian requests for Iron Dome and has only provided trifling amounts of helmets and body armor to Ukraine, no lethal aid. Finally, the two conflicts are vastly different from each other. Ukraine is a full-scale conventional conflict that is consuming armored vehicles by the hundreds and thousands, and artillery shells by the millions. Even if Israel wasn’t capable of producing its own armored vehicles and artillery shells, it isn’t going to need them replaced in anything remotely like those numbers. Expending millions of rounds of artillery on the Gaza Strip would produce an effect comparable to dropping a tactical nuclear weapon on it. Which Israel also domestically produces.
I assume Hamas has been duped, with emotional statements and arms, into making an attack on Israel that actually supports Iran’s agenda related to the US and other countries.
Why do you make that assumption? What are the grounds for it?
You have to season that with “Don’t interfere with the enemy when they are making a mistake”
It seems obvious that Hamas has prepared for this by fortifying positions in Gaza, and that they would try to use this plus the hostages to make the upcoming Israeli invasion as costly as possible. But it also seems clear that they just galvanized the Israeli public to accept the cost of an invasion, so if they hoped this would protect them, they would appear to have miscalculated.
I agree in the sense that the only potential strategic benefit is to Iran and others who don’t want stability, who want to undermine any peace-promoting alliance between Western powers and other ME nations that oppose the objectives of their evil cult.
But I don’t agree that any duping was necessarily involved. The feet on the ground are religious zealots. However midguided, I take them at their word that they believe God is on their side and that martydom in jihad is the highest virtue.
Israel is already receiving precision weapons and missiles from the U.S. Also, 155mm artillery shells are an issue, since both Ukraine and Israel use 155mm artillery, and stocks are getting low.
This while some analysts are worried that Ukraine has dangerously depleted western munitions already.
Turkey was providing Ukraine with Bayraktar drones. They could decide that regional risks mean they have to keep their weaponry on hand.
And if the US starts providing more financial aid to Israel, it will put pressure on financial aid to Ukraine.
You can do both. As the song goes, “Hope for the best, but expect the worst.” In this case, hope that Hamas just made a major mistake. But prepare for the possibility that something else is going on.
What part of “any remotely meaningful way” don’t you understand? The US providing vaguely defined precision guided munitions as a sign of aid isn’t anything remotely like providing millions of shells, hundreds of armored vehicles and artillery systems, billions of dollars in order to float the Ukrainian economy while the entire country is under sustained Russian strategic attack, etc., etc., etc.
Iron Dome is an Israeli system, not an American one. You’ll find the US under “foreign users”, with total US purchases of Iron dome amounting to:
In January 2019 it was reported that the United States would purchase two Iron Dome batteries for 373 million dollars. The batteries were to be deployed to protect US armed forces in hostile areas of operation.[128] The order was for two command posts and radars, 12 launchers, and 480 missiles[129] and was finalized in August 2019.[130] Rafael announced the first battery’s delivery on 30 September 2020.[131] On 13 November 2020, Iron Dome was activated at Fort Bliss to test if it could be connected into the Army’s air and missile defense network, to serve as an interim capability to intercept cruise missiles.
Everything else you’d provided as ‘evidence’ is no more than vague fearmongering. Those ‘some analysts’ who are worried that Ukraine has dangerously depleted western munitions either don’t know what they are talking about or do but know they are lying and are parroting Russian state propaganda. I’d suggest looking at the In defense of Russia thread in the BBQ pit for a thorough dispelling of this talking point.
Turkey is providing Bayraktar drones to Ukraine. Using the past tense of ‘was’ in describing an absurd hypothetical where they decide to stop selling them to Ukraine because of, um, reasons is absurd fearmongering. A deal to produce them domestically in Ukraine has already been worked out:
The US will no doubt provide some dollar value of humanitarian and military aid to Israel as a visible sign of support, but that’s all it will be, a sign of support, not a huge sum of tens or hundreds of billions of dollars over the course of years which is what Ukraine needs and is getting from the US and the rest of NATO in order to survive. The US could give Israeli exactly $0 in new aid, and it will not affect Israel’s ability to deal with the situation.
Oh, and it might come as a shock to you, but Israel produces its own 155mm shells.
The country’s urgent requests will test America’s industrial base
The stock market rallied after the knee-jerk initial drop.
Raytheon up 5%, Lockheed Martin up 9%, General Dynamics up 8%, Northrop up 11%.
I have precious little faith in America’s social structure these days, but if anything depends on US ability to ramp up industrial production, you don’t want to be on the wrong side.
That kinda seems like the US feels something bigger might be afoot to be sending all this aid (I’d think Israel can manage a fight against Gaza without help).
It’s great we are though.
You can ease up on the snark. Yes, one planeload is not ‘meaningful’. But this conflict is just starting. Yes, Israel makes its own 155mm shells, but it can run out just like everyone else.
Your argument was based on Israel’s aelf-sufficiency in weapnry. And yet they have already requested that the U.S. help them replenish. Doesn’t seem to match your claim. Israel still depends heavily on foreign military contractors. Iron Dome is a Rafael/Raytheon project, and Patriot is American.
Also, you may not be aware that Israel also has Patriot missile batteries, and if Iran enters this conflict they will undoubtedly be used. And Patriot missiles are in short supply, very expensive, and take a relatively long time to make. They are also being used to good effect in Ukraine.
And if Israel starts asking for billions in financial aid, there will be some in Congress who will demand that the money be diverted from Ukraine. Mostly the idiot MAGA types that just brought down the speaker of the House, but Ukraine war fatigue will undoubtedly spread over time.
Let’s hope none of this happens and the conflict ends soon. But in warfare, only idiots assume that the best scenarios will come true. The smart ones prepare for the worst.
<< Russia enters the chat. >>
The thing is, modern weapons can take a long time to make. I used to argue against cutting military spending on this board when there were ‘no threats on the horizon’ on the grounds that once a threat emerges it can be too late to build up a modern military.
Have a look at this assessment:
For example, at current production rates the US has already sent ten years worth of 155mm shells to Ukraine. With surge production we can replace them in five years. Excaliber missiles are 2-5 years from replenishment. Javelins will need 8 years to replace at current rates, or about four years at ‘surge’ rates.
This isn’t WWII where you can ramp up production to thousands of tanks and planes per year. Modern weapons systems are far more sophisticated and take longer to build and need a highly trained workforce and complex manufacturing facilities. No Rosie the Riveters hired on short notice will work. We also no longer have the kind of industrial capacity to ramp up, and are short factory workers as it is.
I hereby nominate Tesla’s factories for nationalization and repurposing.
I’m not sure exactly what you’re concerned about. We know what’s going on with Russia. Iran’s military capabilities are essentially nothing other than missiles, and its missiles are several generations behind modern precision guidance. There’s no question that if Iran started something overt, they would be annihilated.
https://www.csis.org/analysis/iranian-missile-threat
I think little here hinges on our military resources or purported lack of them.
As always, the problem is figuring out what we can do that actually achieves anything constructive for the future of the Middle East. I don’t think appeasement is going to work with Iran, but if we hit Iran in retaliation for their support of Hamas, that’s not going to lead to regime change.
Come back to me when Israel is asking the US and NATO to supply it with millions of 155mm shells. Notably none of those shells were on that single plane. Again, firing 1,000,000 155mm shells into a target as small as the Gaza Strip will have an effect comparable to dropping a tactical nuclear weapon on it. It will be completely flattened. I’ll eat my hat if Israel has to ask for 155mm shells, much less fires 1,000,000 of them on Gaza, or 100,000. Israel maintains ammunition reserves to fight full scale conventional conflicts with its neighbors with large, standing militaries such as Egypt if worse comes to worst. Fighting a paramilitary terrorist group like Hamas is orders of magnitude different than fighting the armed forces of Russia.
Which, as @Riemann noted, is actually if anything good for the US economy, as Raytheon stock is up with the increased demand for Iron Dome which isn’t being used in Ukraine because it is an Israeli system and Netanyahu refused Ukrainian requests to have it supplied. Oddly, it seems you were already aware that Iron Dome is an Israeli system, not an American one: A question about Israel’s Iron Dome - Factual Questions - Straight Dope Message Board. How odd.
And if my grandmother had wheels, she’d have been a bicycle. Israel asking the US for billions in financial aid to deal with this crisis is so laughable its offensive to any credibility of Israel to take care of itself, which it has been doing since its creation as a modern state. Israel didn’t ask the US for billions in aid during the Intifadas while it was occupying the Gaza Strip. It didn’t ask for billions in US aid when it invaded Lebanon to drive out the PLO or Hezbollah, and just to remind you one of those times it had to fight a full-scale conventional conflict with the Syrian Army. It doesn’t need billions in US aid in order to be able to deal with Hamas.
No, only idiots assume the wildly implausible is actually in the realms of reality and start fear mongering. The smart ones know better than to bring up issues that don’t actually exist or use the past tense when talking about things like Turkey supplying drones to Ukraine when they are not only still supplying them, but are constructing facilities to build them domestically inside Ukraine.
Israel does not need to ask the US for money…they already get billions every year:
Israel is the largest cumulative recipient of U.S. foreign aid: until February 2022, the United States had provided Israel US$150 billion (non-inflation-adjusted) in bilateral assistance.[1] In 1999, the US government signed a Memorandum of Understanding through which it committed to providing Israel with at least US$2.67 billion in military aid annually, for the following ten years; in 2009, the annual amount was raised to US$3 billion; and in 2019, the amount was raised again, now standing at a minimum of US$3.8 billion that the US is committed to providing Israel each year.[1] - SOURCE
I had assumed the inference was clear that I was talking about the same sort of aid @Sam_Stone was talking about, new aid to deal with the current crisis in Gaza, not aid that has been ongoing to both Israel and Egypt since the Camp David Peace Accords.