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The main difference with Syria is that those who are doing the killing are not funded by the US. Israel on the other hand is funded by the US government, espec

The main difference with Syria is that those who are doing the killing are not funded by the US. Israel on the other hand is funded by the US government, especially its military. On the other hand, it is estimated that 90% of the deaths are by the Syrian government, which is not funded at all by the US Government: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Syrian_civil_war https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Syrian_civil...

tptacek 3y ago
See, this is exactly what I mean.
yodsanklai 3y ago
> Israel on the other hand is funded by the US government, especially its military Generally speaking, Israel is part of the West and we expect them to have a higher standard than some dictatorship. That being said, how many deaths can be attributed to the US in Iraq or Afghanistan? I assume order of magnitude higher than what we're witnessing in Gaza. It seems Israel doesn't get the same free pass for some reason.
- differingopinio 3y ago
  The Israelis have killed more children in two months in Gaza than the US killed in 20 years of war in Afghanistan.
  - tptacek 3y ago
    There's a reason it's Afghanistan people cite here, and not Iraq. Even counts of dead children aren't neutral. There's no way around taking time to learn about things; you can't sum things up with a grisly picture or a grim scorecard. Or you can, I don't know, maybe it works great. It's what we've been trying to do up 'til now. How's it going?
    - differingopinio 3y ago
      The Israelis have also killed more kids in Gaza than the U.S. did in Iraq from 2008 to 2022 (according to UNICEF). https://www.unicef.org/iraq/press-releases/more-9000-children-have-been-killed-or-maimed-%E2%80%AFiraq-2008 https://www.unicef.org/iraq/press-releases/more-9000-childre...
      - ars 3y ago
        That's not even true. 5,500 children (according to Hamas) is less than 9,000 in Iraq (according to UNICEF). And around 33% of that total is from failed rockets in Gaza (based on figures collected in previous wars).
        whatshisface 3y ago
        Sadly the troops are only in the early stages of controlling the area and that number is going to rise a lot if the war is brought to a military completion the way politicians sound like they intend to.
        ars 3y ago
        If you check the figures most of the deaths were early in the war before people actually believed the IDF that they should move South. Once they did that civilian deaths dropped dramatically. So I don't think it's in the early stages, although this ceasefire is going to restart some elements, which is unfortunate. Hamas needs to surrender - everything they do makes life worse for Palestinians.
        whatshisface 3y ago
        I don't think Hamas is structured in a way that is able surrender, especially now that its "political" wing has totally lost whatever diplomatic or local credibility it had. It only took one month for the coalition to destroy Saddam's regime but it took eight years in all to overcome the random violence and isolated terrorist resistance. Some really bad things happened during the latter part and that's what did the most damage to America.
  - krembo 3y ago
    Sir, you are posting fake news.
    - differingopinio 3y ago
      You may be right. I can't find exact statistics, but I saw a few sites giving numbers of 20,000 - 30,000 (for Afghanistan). The rate of children being killed in Gaza however is far more.
      - phpisthebest 3y ago
        All of these numbers come from Hamas, is that a source you trust?
        ceejayoz 3y ago
        They've been roughly reliable in the past. Past performance isn't guarantee of future results, of course. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/oct/26/can-we-trust-casualty-figures-from-the-hamas-run-gaza-health-ministry https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/oct/26/can-we-trust-c... Good discussion at https://politics.stackexchange.com/questions/82572/why-are-statements-from-the-gaza-health-ministry-taken-without-a-grain-of-salt https://politics.stackexchange.com/questions/82572/why-are-s... about the issue. A quick Googling doesn't find me a counter-estimate from Israel. Given the very clear evidence of large scale bombardment of the Gaza Strip (Israel claims 6,000 bombs dropped, and Hamas is known for favoring populated areas; https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/israel-hamas-war-gaza-strip/card/israeli-air-force-says-it-has-dropped-6-000-bombs-on-gaza-QK1aSnupiGqytMVO86PU https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/israel-hamas-war-gaza-strip...), counts in the thousands seem very plausible.
        tptacek 3y ago
        They've already botched major events, like the death toll from PIJ's accidental strike on Al-Ahli Hospital. There's also an ongoing concern about "Gaza Health's" practice of including Hamas fighters in civilian death tolls. They're the best numbers we have or are going to get, so they can't be ignore, but their reliability is probably not a good hill to die on.
  - ars 3y ago
    That's also not true. It seems every single thing you write isn't true. Afghanistan child deaths: 26,000 vs 5,500 in Gaza (according to Hamas).
- bhouston 3y ago
  I protested the Iraq War when it happened too. It was started on false premises and cost a ton. The outcome was good, the us did withdraw and these is a democracy now, but the costs were high.
- NomDePlum 3y ago
  Can you provide a citation on your claim of "an order of magnitude" or retract it please? At present it's not clear Israel is being held to any standard. What is the lower standard you would like them to be held to? It would also be worth explaining why you think any country is due "a free pass" when it comes to killing. And what that "free pass" entitles you to.
  - nearbuy 3y ago
    > Population-based studies produce estimates of the number of Iraq War casualties ranging from 151,000 violent deaths as of June 2006 to 1,033,000 excess deaths https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Iraq_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Iraq_War I'm surprised you're asking for numbers that are so easily accessible. Perhaps you're only thinking of people directly killed by US soldiers while the parent comment was considering all violent deaths caused by the war the US started?
Georgelemental 3y ago
[flagged]
- creato 3y ago
  Your source does not remotely support your claim.
- arp242 3y ago
  > Assad finally freed the city from the terrorists And Assad is not a terrorist? "We want democracy; here, have a bullet in the head instead". That Wikipedia page says pretty clearly it supported the Free Syrian Army, and that some arms may have accidentally ended up with IS extremists. That is not the same thing as "helped arm, fund, and train" at all. Nour al-Din al-Zenki seems to have gotten some support around 2014/2015. It's not entirely clear to me what the entire story on that is, and the LA Times article doesn't explain it either. You are spectacularly misrepresenting your own links to the point it's exceedingly hard to take this in good faith.
  - Georgelemental 3y ago
    The LA times link doesn't tell much of the story, that's why I linked to Wikipedia as well. (As for Assad—I am no fan of the man, he is a butcher, but still far better than Al-Nursa.)
    - arp242 3y ago
      > that's why I linked to Wikipedia as well Which completely contradicts what you claimed.
ars 3y ago
> Israel on the other hand is funded by the US government, especially its military. Israel spent $23.4b on it's military vs $3.3b from the US. And the Israeli economy is $522B making the US "funding of Israel" 0.6% of their economy. That's hardly "funded by the US government". And on top of that the US is "funding" Israel in return for technology, so it's more a purchase by the US than anything else.
- mcpackieh 3y ago
  3.3 billion dollars is a substantial sum of money. If it's as insubstantial as you claim, can I then safely surmise that discontinuing that funding would be a political nothingburger? Would American zionist politicians shrug and say it doesn't matter if we don't give Israel that 3.3 billion, or would they cry and scream about it? Probably the latter. And Israeli politicians, would they shrug and say it doesn't matter, or would they echo their American counterparts? I think the latter.
  - davidf18 3y ago
    [dead]
  - ars 3y ago
    They US gets a lot in return for their funding, it's not a one way deal at all. So you need to take into account what the US would lose. It's far more complex than your shallow "cry and scream".
    - mcpackieh 3y ago
      You mean like getting "the only democracy in the region" to be our ally in supporting America's wars in the region? This is the most often touted "benefit" but to say this actually has value to the average American is farcical. Most of America's support for Israel is rooted in religion and ideology, not any tangible benefits to America.
- jamilton 3y ago
  https://www.state.gov/u-s-relations-with-israel-2/ https://www.state.gov/u-s-relations-with-israel-2/ >The U.S.-Israel economic and commercial relationship is strong, anchored by an annual bilateral trade of nearly $50 billion in goods and services. Several treaties and agreements, including the 1985 U.S.-Israel Free Trade Agreement (FTA), solidify bilateral economic relations. Since the FTA’s signing in 1985, the United States has become Israel’s largest trading partner. I think it's fair to say that the US has strong connections to Israel. I don't know if it's fair to imply it's totally dependent on the US as they implied, but I think it's more complex than the aid being a small percentage of the GDP.
mr_toad 3y ago
> Israel on the other hand is funded by the US government, especially its military. US funding of Israel is at most a few percent of their GDP. Some years it drops to below 1 percent. If the US stopped funding Israel nothing would happen in Israel. Israel is more than capable of looking after themselves. And they have nukes. The only political repercussions of cutting funding for Israel would be in the US itself. It buys votes. They’re not actually doing it for Israels benefit.
- coredog64 3y ago
  Israel is an incubator for weapons systems, and generic contributions buy access. The US manufactures the ammunition for Iron Dome, and the DoD is generally keen on adding something like Iron Beam to the abilities of every branch of the service.
  - bhouston 3y ago
    This is just a side effect of the Israel lobby pushing for strong alignment between the US and Israel. The lobby pushes for alignment and dollars and military cooperation follows. You can mixing up cause and effect. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel_lobby_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel_lobby_in_the_United_Sta... For example AIPAC is pledging $100m to target in primaries progressive democrats who have not supported Israel recently. That is a hell of a lot of money: https://www.bostonherald.com/2023/11/17/powerful-pro-israel-political-group-targets-the-liberal-squad-and-ayanna-pressley/ https://www.bostonherald.com/2023/11/17/powerful-pro-israel-...
    - hbt 3y ago
      the bombs being dropped on Gaza are american bombs. It is not 1% of bombs being american, so I don't know what GDP relativism has to do with it.
      - bhouston 3y ago
        Are you replying to someone else? I didn’t mention gdp or even imply it.
mda 3y ago
Syrian government and Russia.
cced 3y ago
> not funded by the US Hey just curious here, mind explaining why/how the US is currently occupying 1/3 of Syria and taking 90% of it’s pre-war oil production?

tptacek 3y ago

See, this is exactly what I mean.

yodsanklai 3y ago

> Israel on the other hand is funded by the US government, especially its military Generally speaking, Israel is part of the West and we expect them to have a higher standard than some dictatorship. That being said, how many deaths can be attributed to the US in Iraq or Afghanistan? I assume order of magnitude higher than what we're witnessing in Gaza. It seems Israel doesn't get the same free pass for some reason.

differingopinio 3y ago
The Israelis have killed more children in two months in Gaza than the US killed in 20 years of war in Afghanistan.
- tptacek 3y ago
  There's a reason it's Afghanistan people cite here, and not Iraq. Even counts of dead children aren't neutral. There's no way around taking time to learn about things; you can't sum things up with a grisly picture or a grim scorecard. Or you can, I don't know, maybe it works great. It's what we've been trying to do up 'til now. How's it going?
  - differingopinio 3y ago
    The Israelis have also killed more kids in Gaza than the U.S. did in Iraq from 2008 to 2022 (according to UNICEF). https://www.unicef.org/iraq/press-releases/more-9000-children-have-been-killed-or-maimed-%E2%80%AFiraq-2008 https://www.unicef.org/iraq/press-releases/more-9000-childre...
    - ars 3y ago
      That's not even true. 5,500 children (according to Hamas) is less than 9,000 in Iraq (according to UNICEF). And around 33% of that total is from failed rockets in Gaza (based on figures collected in previous wars).
      - whatshisface 3y ago
        Sadly the troops are only in the early stages of controlling the area and that number is going to rise a lot if the war is brought to a military completion the way politicians sound like they intend to.
        ars 3y ago
        If you check the figures most of the deaths were early in the war before people actually believed the IDF that they should move South. Once they did that civilian deaths dropped dramatically. So I don't think it's in the early stages, although this ceasefire is going to restart some elements, which is unfortunate. Hamas needs to surrender - everything they do makes life worse for Palestinians.
        whatshisface 3y ago
        I don't think Hamas is structured in a way that is able surrender, especially now that its "political" wing has totally lost whatever diplomatic or local credibility it had. It only took one month for the coalition to destroy Saddam's regime but it took eight years in all to overcome the random violence and isolated terrorist resistance. Some really bad things happened during the latter part and that's what did the most damage to America.
- krembo 3y ago
  Sir, you are posting fake news.
  - differingopinio 3y ago
    You may be right. I can't find exact statistics, but I saw a few sites giving numbers of 20,000 - 30,000 (for Afghanistan). The rate of children being killed in Gaza however is far more.
    - phpisthebest 3y ago
      All of these numbers come from Hamas, is that a source you trust?
      - ceejayoz 3y ago
        They've been roughly reliable in the past. Past performance isn't guarantee of future results, of course. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/oct/26/can-we-trust-casualty-figures-from-the-hamas-run-gaza-health-ministry https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/oct/26/can-we-trust-c... Good discussion at https://politics.stackexchange.com/questions/82572/why-are-statements-from-the-gaza-health-ministry-taken-without-a-grain-of-salt https://politics.stackexchange.com/questions/82572/why-are-s... about the issue. A quick Googling doesn't find me a counter-estimate from Israel. Given the very clear evidence of large scale bombardment of the Gaza Strip (Israel claims 6,000 bombs dropped, and Hamas is known for favoring populated areas; https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/israel-hamas-war-gaza-strip/card/israeli-air-force-says-it-has-dropped-6-000-bombs-on-gaza-QK1aSnupiGqytMVO86PU https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/israel-hamas-war-gaza-strip...), counts in the thousands seem very plausible.
        tptacek 3y ago
        They've already botched major events, like the death toll from PIJ's accidental strike on Al-Ahli Hospital. There's also an ongoing concern about "Gaza Health's" practice of including Hamas fighters in civilian death tolls. They're the best numbers we have or are going to get, so they can't be ignore, but their reliability is probably not a good hill to die on.
- ars 3y ago
  That's also not true. It seems every single thing you write isn't true. Afghanistan child deaths: 26,000 vs 5,500 in Gaza (according to Hamas).
bhouston 3y ago
I protested the Iraq War when it happened too. It was started on false premises and cost a ton. The outcome was good, the us did withdraw and these is a democracy now, but the costs were high.
NomDePlum 3y ago
Can you provide a citation on your claim of "an order of magnitude" or retract it please? At present it's not clear Israel is being held to any standard. What is the lower standard you would like them to be held to? It would also be worth explaining why you think any country is due "a free pass" when it comes to killing. And what that "free pass" entitles you to.
- nearbuy 3y ago
  > Population-based studies produce estimates of the number of Iraq War casualties ranging from 151,000 violent deaths as of June 2006 to 1,033,000 excess deaths https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Iraq_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Iraq_War I'm surprised you're asking for numbers that are so easily accessible. Perhaps you're only thinking of people directly killed by US soldiers while the parent comment was considering all violent deaths caused by the war the US started?

Georgelemental 3y ago

[flagged]

creato 3y ago
Your source does not remotely support your claim.
arp242 3y ago
> Assad finally freed the city from the terrorists And Assad is not a terrorist? "We want democracy; here, have a bullet in the head instead". That Wikipedia page says pretty clearly it supported the Free Syrian Army, and that some arms may have accidentally ended up with IS extremists. That is not the same thing as "helped arm, fund, and train" at all. Nour al-Din al-Zenki seems to have gotten some support around 2014/2015. It's not entirely clear to me what the entire story on that is, and the LA Times article doesn't explain it either. You are spectacularly misrepresenting your own links to the point it's exceedingly hard to take this in good faith.
- Georgelemental 3y ago
  The LA times link doesn't tell much of the story, that's why I linked to Wikipedia as well. (As for Assad—I am no fan of the man, he is a butcher, but still far better than Al-Nursa.)
  - arp242 3y ago
    > that's why I linked to Wikipedia as well Which completely contradicts what you claimed.

ars 3y ago

> Israel on the other hand is funded by the US government, especially its military. Israel spent $23.4b on it's military vs $3.3b from the US. And the Israeli economy is $522B making the US "funding of Israel" 0.6% of their economy. That's hardly "funded by the US government". And on top of that the US is "funding" Israel in return for technology, so it's more a purchase by the US than anything else.

mcpackieh 3y ago
3.3 billion dollars is a substantial sum of money. If it's as insubstantial as you claim, can I then safely surmise that discontinuing that funding would be a political nothingburger? Would American zionist politicians shrug and say it doesn't matter if we don't give Israel that 3.3 billion, or would they cry and scream about it? Probably the latter. And Israeli politicians, would they shrug and say it doesn't matter, or would they echo their American counterparts? I think the latter.
- davidf18 3y ago
  [dead]
- ars 3y ago
  They US gets a lot in return for their funding, it's not a one way deal at all. So you need to take into account what the US would lose. It's far more complex than your shallow "cry and scream".
  - mcpackieh 3y ago
    You mean like getting "the only democracy in the region" to be our ally in supporting America's wars in the region? This is the most often touted "benefit" but to say this actually has value to the average American is farcical. Most of America's support for Israel is rooted in religion and ideology, not any tangible benefits to America.
jamilton 3y ago
https://www.state.gov/u-s-relations-with-israel-2/ https://www.state.gov/u-s-relations-with-israel-2/ >The U.S.-Israel economic and commercial relationship is strong, anchored by an annual bilateral trade of nearly $50 billion in goods and services. Several treaties and agreements, including the 1985 U.S.-Israel Free Trade Agreement (FTA), solidify bilateral economic relations. Since the FTA’s signing in 1985, the United States has become Israel’s largest trading partner. I think it's fair to say that the US has strong connections to Israel. I don't know if it's fair to imply it's totally dependent on the US as they implied, but I think it's more complex than the aid being a small percentage of the GDP.

mr_toad 3y ago

> Israel on the other hand is funded by the US government, especially its military. US funding of Israel is at most a few percent of their GDP. Some years it drops to below 1 percent. If the US stopped funding Israel nothing would happen in Israel. Israel is more than capable of looking after themselves. And they have nukes. The only political repercussions of cutting funding for Israel would be in the US itself. It buys votes. They’re not actually doing it for Israels benefit.

coredog64 3y ago
Israel is an incubator for weapons systems, and generic contributions buy access. The US manufactures the ammunition for Iron Dome, and the DoD is generally keen on adding something like Iron Beam to the abilities of every branch of the service.
- bhouston 3y ago
  This is just a side effect of the Israel lobby pushing for strong alignment between the US and Israel. The lobby pushes for alignment and dollars and military cooperation follows. You can mixing up cause and effect. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel_lobby_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel_lobby_in_the_United_Sta... For example AIPAC is pledging $100m to target in primaries progressive democrats who have not supported Israel recently. That is a hell of a lot of money: https://www.bostonherald.com/2023/11/17/powerful-pro-israel-political-group-targets-the-liberal-squad-and-ayanna-pressley/ https://www.bostonherald.com/2023/11/17/powerful-pro-israel-...
  - hbt 3y ago
    the bombs being dropped on Gaza are american bombs. It is not 1% of bombs being american, so I don't know what GDP relativism has to do with it.
    - bhouston 3y ago
      Are you replying to someone else? I didn’t mention gdp or even imply it.

mda 3y ago

Syrian government and Russia.

cced 3y ago

> not funded by the US Hey just curious here, mind explaining why/how the US is currently occupying 1/3 of Syria and taking 90% of it’s pre-war oil production?