4 ms·

Keep in mind who pays for the replacements - U.S. Citizens to the tune of $317.9 billion over the last 70 years [1]. https://taxpayersforpeace.org/ https://tax

by _dke7 7mo ago

Keep in mind who pays for the replacements - U.S. Citizens to the tune of $317.9 billion over the last 70 years [1]. https://taxpayersforpeace.org/ https://taxpayersforpeace.org/

alephnerd 7mo ago
[flagged]
- spaghetdefects 7mo ago
  There were plenty of other alternatives, starting with sanctions against Israel and followed with military action. The boomer generation's support for Israel created a very odd relationship that was entirely one way. Younger generations will certainly reverse this.
  - alephnerd 7mo ago
    [flagged]
    - spaghetdefects 7mo ago
      The US has given over $300B to Israel since its creation: https://usafacts.org/answers/how-much-foreign-aid-does-the-us-provide/countries/israel/ https://usafacts.org/answers/how-much-foreign-aid-does-the-u... That does not count the money we've spent fighting their wars. We could have cut that off and sanctioned them at any time if they worked against our interests. Israel's strategy has been to compromise US leadership to stop this from happening, and until recently it was successful at that.
      - alephnerd 7mo ago
        [flagged]
        spaghetdefects 7mo ago
        And as I mentioned, there are other alternatives like sanctions against Israel and military action against Israel. It's a tiny country, 100% reliant on outside support to exist. The US has always had the ability to end Israel.
        Sabinus 7mo ago
        You're suggesting that the USA attempt to 'end' a nuclear armed country for working with the Chinese?
        spaghetdefects 7mo ago
        I don't care about China at all. I'm actually suggesting that the US fight Israel because it's attacked us by staging a soft coup of our country's leadership.
        tomhow 7mo ago
        > Edit 2: @Dang - Flagging is not meant to be used as a downvote. Sure, but complaining about downvotes is against the guidelines, and @replies are not a way to get moderator attention. The way to get moderator attention (including asking for flags to be reviewed) is to email hn@ycombinator.com. Repeatedly posting the same sentence as a way of protesting or attracting attention is poor conduct in a community like this, and makes it harder for moderators to help you.
IncreasePosts 7mo ago
When you put it that way it seems pretty cheap.
- goatlover 7mo ago
  When you put it that way, sounds like they should be able to take care of themselves and not need the US to help fight their battles for them.
- sph 7mo ago
  > pretty cheap What exactly are you buying with that money, to know it's cheap?
  - franktankbank 7mo ago
    Middle east wire tap effectively.
  - onehair 7mo ago
    in the past few years, OpenAI and other companies like it have received relatively the same amount of money the USA has spent on weapons for the past 70 years it seems. so relative to that, yes, it is cheap...
    - pseudohadamard 7mo ago
      The difference is that OpenAI is addicting (mostly) consenting adults, not genociding civilians.
  - IncreasePosts 7mo ago
    Well, that money is buying weaponry created by US companies for the most part. My point is the federal government budget over that same time period is in the many trillions, and $300B is just a fraction of a percent of that.
alephnerd 7mo ago
[flagged]
- gravisultra 7mo ago
  [flagged]
  - hersko 7mo ago
    Any blackmail proof?
    - gravisultra 7mo ago
      Yes, the Epstein files.
      - hersko 7mo ago
        [flagged]
- orwin 7mo ago
  > There was a chance for normalization in the 2000s - especially under Shimon Peres - but the rise of Hamas ended that. You mean in the 90s, but the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin ended that, no? The Likud called for his death. And the Hamas rise has the same roots of the IRGC. Marxists against religious fundamentalists during elections, of course the US support and fund the religious fundamentalists (through Irak for one, through Israel for the other), and 10 years later everybody's surprised when fundamentalists are crazy and attack for no reason.
  - alephnerd 7mo ago
    > You mean in the 90s, but the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin ended that, no Nope. The Oslo Accords and the process leading up to the Camp David Accords was actually pretty popular domestically speaking with Rabin's assassin being domestically reviled, Israel unilaterally removed settlements from the Gaza Strip, and Gazans were allowed work and free passage in Israel in the 2000s, but the Fatah-Hamas rivalry became a chain reaction to spiraled into brinkmanship and constant suicide bombings, pipe rockets, and mortar attacks in Israel in the 2000s. This soured a whole generation against the two-state process and hardened opinions in Israel. A similar normalization was about to happen via the Abraham Accords and IMEC, but October 7th happened barely 3 weeks after the Gulf States announced they would normalize relations and unify supply chains with Israel, the EU, and India [3]. This was going to be legacymaking for Mohammed bin Salman [4] before it was stymied by 10/7, and a reason why Saudi Arabia also privately lobbied Trump to strike Iran [5]. > of course the US support and fund the religious fundamentalists Nope. The US supported nominally leftist Fatah in Gaza, as Mohammad Dahlan was our guy [0]. After losing the Gaza Civil War he became one of the most powerful men in UAE by becoming MbZ's righthand man. He was the interlocutor who helped the UAE expand it's real estate (the Belgrade Waterfront project) and weapons portfolio in Serbia [1], acted as emissary to normalize UAE-Israel relations as well as what became the Abraham Accords [1], and is being positioned as a potential leader of Gaza and the West Bank [2] after the war ends. [0] - https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2008/04/gaza200804 https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2008/04/gaza200804 [1] - https://www.intelligenceonline.com/insiders/uae_middle-east_palestine/2021/04/26/mohammed-dahlan-juggles-uae-role-and-palestinian-ambitions/109660127-be1 https://www.intelligenceonline.com/insiders/uae_middle-east_... [2] - https://www.economist.com/middle-east-and-africa/2023/10/30/a-vision-for-the-palestinians-after-the-war https://www.economist.com/middle-east-and-africa/2023/10/30/... [3] - https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/sep/09/g20-eu-and-us-back-trade-corridor-linking-europe-middle-east-and-india https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/sep/09/g20-eu-and-us-... [4] - https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/saudi-crown-prince-says-getting-closer-israel-normalization-fox-interview-2023-09-20/ https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/saudi-crown-prince... [5] - https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2026/02/28/trump-iran-decision-saudi-arabia-israel/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2026/02/28/trump-ira...
pseudohadamard 7mo ago
Two follow-ons from that: 1. Israel's sugar daddy will give (as in gift) them all the munitions they need. They'll never come close to running out. 2. This is the country that's been crying wolf over Iran being months away from having the bomb for something like twenty years now, while having up to several hundred nukes of their own. Why should we believe them when they're crying wolf about running out of munitions?
nicbou 7mo ago
A thousand bucks per citizen, whew.

by _dke7 7mo ago

Keep in mind who pays for the replacements - U.S. Citizens to the tune of $317.9 billion over the last 70 years [1]. https://taxpayersforpeace.org/ https://taxpayersforpeace.org/

alephnerd 7mo ago

[flagged]

spaghetdefects 7mo ago
There were plenty of other alternatives, starting with sanctions against Israel and followed with military action. The boomer generation's support for Israel created a very odd relationship that was entirely one way. Younger generations will certainly reverse this.
- alephnerd 7mo ago
  [flagged]
  - spaghetdefects 7mo ago
    The US has given over $300B to Israel since its creation: https://usafacts.org/answers/how-much-foreign-aid-does-the-us-provide/countries/israel/ https://usafacts.org/answers/how-much-foreign-aid-does-the-u... That does not count the money we've spent fighting their wars. We could have cut that off and sanctioned them at any time if they worked against our interests. Israel's strategy has been to compromise US leadership to stop this from happening, and until recently it was successful at that.
    - alephnerd 7mo ago
      [flagged]
      - spaghetdefects 7mo ago
        And as I mentioned, there are other alternatives like sanctions against Israel and military action against Israel. It's a tiny country, 100% reliant on outside support to exist. The US has always had the ability to end Israel.
        Sabinus 7mo ago
        You're suggesting that the USA attempt to 'end' a nuclear armed country for working with the Chinese?
        spaghetdefects 7mo ago
        I don't care about China at all. I'm actually suggesting that the US fight Israel because it's attacked us by staging a soft coup of our country's leadership.
      - tomhow 7mo ago
        > Edit 2: @Dang - Flagging is not meant to be used as a downvote. Sure, but complaining about downvotes is against the guidelines, and @replies are not a way to get moderator attention. The way to get moderator attention (including asking for flags to be reviewed) is to email hn@ycombinator.com. Repeatedly posting the same sentence as a way of protesting or attracting attention is poor conduct in a community like this, and makes it harder for moderators to help you.

IncreasePosts 7mo ago

When you put it that way it seems pretty cheap.

goatlover 7mo ago
When you put it that way, sounds like they should be able to take care of themselves and not need the US to help fight their battles for them.
sph 7mo ago
> pretty cheap What exactly are you buying with that money, to know it's cheap?
- franktankbank 7mo ago
  Middle east wire tap effectively.
- onehair 7mo ago
  in the past few years, OpenAI and other companies like it have received relatively the same amount of money the USA has spent on weapons for the past 70 years it seems. so relative to that, yes, it is cheap...
  - pseudohadamard 7mo ago
    The difference is that OpenAI is addicting (mostly) consenting adults, not genociding civilians.
- IncreasePosts 7mo ago
  Well, that money is buying weaponry created by US companies for the most part. My point is the federal government budget over that same time period is in the many trillions, and $300B is just a fraction of a percent of that.

alephnerd 7mo ago

[flagged]

gravisultra 7mo ago
[flagged]
- hersko 7mo ago
  Any blackmail proof?
  - gravisultra 7mo ago
    Yes, the Epstein files.
    - hersko 7mo ago
      [flagged]
orwin 7mo ago
> There was a chance for normalization in the 2000s - especially under Shimon Peres - but the rise of Hamas ended that. You mean in the 90s, but the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin ended that, no? The Likud called for his death. And the Hamas rise has the same roots of the IRGC. Marxists against religious fundamentalists during elections, of course the US support and fund the religious fundamentalists (through Irak for one, through Israel for the other), and 10 years later everybody's surprised when fundamentalists are crazy and attack for no reason.
- alephnerd 7mo ago
  > You mean in the 90s, but the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin ended that, no Nope. The Oslo Accords and the process leading up to the Camp David Accords was actually pretty popular domestically speaking with Rabin's assassin being domestically reviled, Israel unilaterally removed settlements from the Gaza Strip, and Gazans were allowed work and free passage in Israel in the 2000s, but the Fatah-Hamas rivalry became a chain reaction to spiraled into brinkmanship and constant suicide bombings, pipe rockets, and mortar attacks in Israel in the 2000s. This soured a whole generation against the two-state process and hardened opinions in Israel. A similar normalization was about to happen via the Abraham Accords and IMEC, but October 7th happened barely 3 weeks after the Gulf States announced they would normalize relations and unify supply chains with Israel, the EU, and India [3]. This was going to be legacymaking for Mohammed bin Salman [4] before it was stymied by 10/7, and a reason why Saudi Arabia also privately lobbied Trump to strike Iran [5]. > of course the US support and fund the religious fundamentalists Nope. The US supported nominally leftist Fatah in Gaza, as Mohammad Dahlan was our guy [0]. After losing the Gaza Civil War he became one of the most powerful men in UAE by becoming MbZ's righthand man. He was the interlocutor who helped the UAE expand it's real estate (the Belgrade Waterfront project) and weapons portfolio in Serbia [1], acted as emissary to normalize UAE-Israel relations as well as what became the Abraham Accords [1], and is being positioned as a potential leader of Gaza and the West Bank [2] after the war ends. [0] - https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2008/04/gaza200804 https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2008/04/gaza200804 [1] - https://www.intelligenceonline.com/insiders/uae_middle-east_palestine/2021/04/26/mohammed-dahlan-juggles-uae-role-and-palestinian-ambitions/109660127-be1 https://www.intelligenceonline.com/insiders/uae_middle-east_... [2] - https://www.economist.com/middle-east-and-africa/2023/10/30/a-vision-for-the-palestinians-after-the-war https://www.economist.com/middle-east-and-africa/2023/10/30/... [3] - https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/sep/09/g20-eu-and-us-back-trade-corridor-linking-europe-middle-east-and-india https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/sep/09/g20-eu-and-us-... [4] - https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/saudi-crown-prince-says-getting-closer-israel-normalization-fox-interview-2023-09-20/ https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/saudi-crown-prince... [5] - https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2026/02/28/trump-iran-decision-saudi-arabia-israel/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2026/02/28/trump-ira...

pseudohadamard 7mo ago

Two follow-ons from that: 1. Israel's sugar daddy will give (as in gift) them all the munitions they need. They'll never come close to running out. 2. This is the country that's been crying wolf over Iran being months away from having the bomb for something like twenty years now, while having up to several hundred nukes of their own. Why should we believe them when they're crying wolf about running out of munitions?

nicbou 7mo ago

A thousand bucks per citizen, whew.