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Trump, breaking with Netanyahu, acknowledges ‘real starvation’ in Gaza. Reddit discussion.
This makes him the first right winger I've seen say anything about starvation after something happened recently that made lots of places start talking about it, maybe the move to GHF food distribution? I can't really trust the UN when they talk about it, since they may have been still pissed that Israel cut UNRWA out, plus I heard it was only two dedicated Gaza writers putting out statements of that kind. I can't really trust leftists when they post about it, because they fail to show me their homework and seem to argue a very motivated stance. But Trump talking about it... I don't know about that either. He has spoken off the cuff before. But it brings me to ask: how bad is it? What footage did he see and is it reflected in the data?
Supposing that there is starvation: is that Israel's intention? What is Israel's strategy going forward? I thought that making camps to move civilians into was a good idea, and then once everyone's out, painstakingly clear the whole place, but I think that the international community wouldn't accept that because it's technically ethnic cleansing. There isn't actually anything the international community would be satisfied by except for total ceasefire and return to October 6th. But I don't actually know what the intention is, is the intention to draw Hamas out of hiding to get to the food somehow? I have a hard time discerning what is true about the war and what isn't.
Whenever I try to figure out how mad I should be about this I do my best to translate it to a local Western frame.
If Canadian native peoples crossed the border, raped and murdered a bunch of US civilians at Burning Man, dragged hostages back to Vancouver and the Canadian government was like "lol get fukt America u r settler colonialists" I would absolutely support blowing the shit out of them until every native was dead or captured and every hostage was returned. If every Canadian starves to death as a result, well that sucks but they should consider revolting against their own government if they have a problem with that.
We're responsible for our people and I will be furious if we fuck around at all with bringing them home.
Looking at it this way makes me sympathize with Israel so much more.
Israel may do what it pleases (as is the right of a sovereign state) but it doesn't necessarily follow that Israel should be given tens of billions in supplementary US military aid, on top of already existing military aid. I don't accuse you of calling for this but Israeli strategy can only sensibly be considered in context, just like how one can't look at Hamas or the Houthis as sole actors. $18 billion in just one year, more since then. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/u-s-military-aid-for-israel-tops-17-9-billion-since-last-oct-7
America and to a lesser extent Britain are enabling Israeli strategic incoherence, providing air cover and munitions. If it weren't for US munitions the Israelis would need to wrap things up quickly because they would not be able to prosecute this extended, bizarre campaign.
What is this military aid buying? It's buying enemies in the Islamic world, it's depleting Western arsenals of air defence missiles. Years of THAAD and SM-3 production down the drain defending Israel. In the short term these air defence missiles are priceless, there's no capacity to quickly ramp up production.
It makes no sense to send aid to Gaza so they can survive and send munitions to Israel so they can kill them. Better to do nothing at all.
Ah yes, enemies.
We can see that Osama Bin Laden was pretty upset with Israel. It, amongst other things, motivated him and he caused no small amount of trouble for the US and the West in general. How many new Bin Laden's are going to emerge from this current episode?
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If such aid was not given and this was signaled well in advance, do you still think they would need to wrap up quickly, or could they just have spent more on military and gotten the same result?
Israel is a small country, and they can only afford spending this much of their economic power on military before they would start looking like North Korea. This whole narrative that the aid isn't actually necessary because our allies are strong and can win on their own just fine (but we must urgently Do The Right Thing and send more of it!), seen also in the context of Ukraine, is among the more intellectually galling aspects of Western propaganda.
I dont think Ive particularly seen that messaging, and Im genuinely asking. Obviously Ukraine isnt like that, but Israel generally seems more diplomatically than materially limited. Looking things up now, Israels military spending was about 5% of GDP in previous years, up to 9% last year. US aid was approximately(second chart) at 1%, increased to 3% last year (and presumably continuing for the current conflict). Probably those numbers dont include everything, but thats far from "obviously impossible" territory. North Korea is quite a bit higher than that, and you can see in the first link that Israel was there previously. For another comparsion, support for the former east german states seems to have been around 5% of west german GDP in the initial years.
North Korea has a fairly substantial steel and chemicals industry and a large munitions industry, they have the whole of the warmaking pyramid (save the very top in advanced avionics, aircraft engines and the like). That's what juche is about, self-reliance. Israel just has the top section of the pyramid in advanced manufacturing and R&D. They're reliant on imports of precursor materials and are quite rate-limited in basic things like shells and bombs. Ukraine for instance is a proper industrial power, they have/had a large metallurgical sector.
GDP and dollar figures aren't the right way to look at military production. North Korea is a dollar pygmy but a munitions giant.
There's no liquid market for bombs or shells in the short term, spending more can just raise the price you buy at rather than increasing production. That's why North Korea has been able to provide more munitions to Russia than the EU to Ukraine.
Im not talking about a US thats opposed to Israel. They still give them weapons (and steel/chemicals/whatever), just expecting payment. Im also not necessarily talking about short-term buying, thats why it matters things are signaled in advance, so they can make their own stockpile if thats important.
The GDP stuff is about the political aspect of the spending. Is there something left from the objection after that? Are NK rockets cheaper to make than youd expect based on quality and local labour costs?
If Israel had to buy its munitions (either in the short term or long term) it would impose more pressure to finish the war quickly, or in general do more diplomacy and less bombing. Easy to spend other people's money or take risks if your friends will bail you out, people are usually more frugal with their own money.
The US also helps Israel with key enablers that aren't really for sale - satellite surveillance, in-air refuelling, electronic signals gathering and B-2 bomber strikes. It would be impractical for Israel to try and replace what the US does for them, they can't afford a blue-water navy to put ships in the Persian gulf and shoot at Iranian missiles from there, nor can Israel really put much pressure on Yemen. Once you have a navy, using it is easy enough but if you don't then getting one is hard.
Israel could establish a stockpile of munitions purchased from overseas but it wouldn't be very economical or reliable compared to domestic production or getting resupplied straight from the US.
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Which is to say, stable and at peace (if an uneasy one) with their neighbors?
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