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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.
The quickest way to win a war against an intransigent opponent when you have total military supremacy isn't less bombing and more diplomacy, rather the opposite. Same goes for people's plans to defund the iron dome. The cheapest way to do things is the bloodiest.
If the price of bombing is higher, then the amount of bombing will fall as bombing is replaced with substitutes?
Seems pretty straightforward to me.
Israeli military supremacy is a mirage. They can't stop Iranian missile barrages without a gigantic US defence effort and even then a fair few get through. They can't even persist with their bombing of Gaza without US munitions, the munitions just aren't there.
The 'lets just exterminate them all' policy you seem to be proposing would probably shorten the lifespan of the state of Israel rather than lengthening it. Very courageous for a small country dependent upon global supply chains for its high-tech economy to beg for sanctions while performing a follow-up to the Warsaw ghetto liquidation (such an operation will be costly!) At the end of the day, Arab oil > whatever Israel brings to the table.
Can you explain realistically what diplomatic solution exists for Isreal.
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