Rafael’s Iron Dome | Hacker News Reader

Rafael’s Iron Dome

rafael.co.il

15 pointstomerbd33 comments

I understand that this is a hyper complex geopolitical problem, but could someone who is a staunch Palestine supporter explain to me why Israel shouldn't be retaliating against these strikes? Or what makes these 2500+ attacks okay?

Edit: I am genuinely curious. Grew up in a conservative family that were staunch Israel supporters, and I have never fully grasped both side's points.

They can retaliate of course, they just do not have the moral highground to complain about them. They occupied and installed a racist apartheid system in Palestine that continues to this day. It's like complaining that Ukraine defends itself from Russia in unconventional or unexpected ways: war doesn't have to be symmetric.

The attacks from Gaza towards Israel are targeted at civilian infra.

I mean it's basically the same for both sides...

The attacks from Gaza are targeted at civilians with the intention of killing civilians. They are also launched from civilian areas inside Gaza.

The Israeli retaliations are targeted at the militants with the intention of killing the militants. The strikes are incredibly surgical and despite needing to happen in civilian areas usually only kill the targeted militants.

But not always.

Still much much better than any other military that's tried to do surgical strikes in civilian areas.

On 29 November 1947 the UN General Assembly voted on the partition plan, adopted by 33 votes to 13 with 10 abstentions. The Jewish side accepted the UN plan for the establishment of two states. The Arabs rejected it and launched a war of annihilation against the Jewish state.

Not a staunch Palestine supporter but I think both are OK. The Palestine is OK to retaliate against Israel's taking their land and air striking and Israel is OK to retaliate too. It's basically a mess that no one knows how to solve, and from my understanding can only be solved whence one side (or both sides) is significantly weakened.

Let them sort out...

I'm not a staunch Palestine supporter, but I'd say that most of those retaliations take form of collective punishment.

From Israel side this is usually an attempt at a pinpointed strike on terrorist infra. Not clear which part is a collective retaliation

"It is an affront to justice and the rule of law to see that such methods continue to be used in the 21st century and that Palestinians collectively continue to be punished for the actions of a few," said Michael Lynk, the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian Territory occupied since 1967

https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2020/07/israels-coll...

I'm not invested in either side, but the fundamental issue is that the Gaza zone is neither an independent state nor a province of 'democratic' Israel, so either (1) Israel grants all Gaza residents citizenship status and allows them to vote in Israeli national elections or (2) Gaza becomes an independent country with its own ports and control of its borders. Israel appears fundamentally opposed to both solutions, for various reasons (but this also undermines Israel's claim to 'democratic governance').

As it stands today, Gaza is just an open air prison controlled by Israel, whose and Gaza residents have no legal rights (e.g. innocent victims of Israeli bombings can hardly sue the Israeli government in Israeli courts for damages, etc.).

The fact that both sides in the conflict have extremist religious fundamentalists in their ranks calling for genocide of the opposition doesn't help matters, either - but this is a problem across the entire Middle East, which looks a bit like medieval/feudal Europe of 300 years ago in that respect.

Israel and Egypt. Gaza has border with both.

I’ll take a stab at it:

I don’t think people are saying Israel shouldn’t defend themselves, it’s more about why the strikes are happening in the first place. It’s like if Russia built a giant defense system to keep out Ukrainian missiles. The problem isn’t that they’re defending themselves it’s what they’re doing to provoke it.

As for why the attacks are happening, like you said it s a very complicated issue. But in essence Israel has kicked a bunch of Palestinians out of their homes and illegally annexed their land, in violation of international law. They’ve also continued to violate the human rights of the Palestinians that remain.

If you want to read more: UN: https://news.un.org/en/story/2022/10/1129722 Amnesty International: https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/campaigns/2022/02/israels-...

> It’s like if Russia built a giant defense system to keep out Ukrainian missiles.

This is a bad analogy, because Ukraine doesn't shoot missiles into Russia, but Gaza shoots missiles into Israel all the time.

I guess a better analogy would be the Germans complaining about the British bombing them in WWII.

(Although Russia has claimed that Ukraine has staged drone attacks in Russia: https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2022/12/05/europe/russia-ukraine-mis...)

Yeah, I would narrow this down Germans complaining for allies purposefully bombing a civilian infra. But present day standars this is a war crime.

Gaza Strip didn't exist pre-1940s and no one was shooting from it.

I wholeheartedly condemn Palestinian terrorism, and at the same time see that Israel's actions are a key, unfair cause of it.

Thanks and thanks for the sources.

The problem woth this is that Palestinians kicked Israelis as well very early on many ears before Israel was created. Here is an example https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1929_Hebron_massacre

Throwaway account as my main is not suitable for this discussion.

I'm not a staunch supporter of anyone. But consider that since the foundation of the modern State of Israel, the Palestinian people have been dispossessed of their ancestral land, violently and forcibly removed from their homes, villages and farms, and on a racial basis denied proper political engagement in the nation state that was created in their midst.

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nakba for more context. You may not be aware that this took place, as in the US (and other western nations) this history is rarely taught.

I wouldn't frame it as "why Israel shouldn't be retaliating" but rather, why you would expect any people to peaceably accept such a state of affairs without fighting back. I don't think anyone would be surprised at Israel retaliating against strikes from the Palestinian territories.

Your question is based on a false dichotomy: that Palestine supporters think any of those things. As you say, the problem is complex.

Iron Dome works as intended, but would not be necessary if Israel wasn't annexing land that people already live on and consider home. That's what the Palestinians are mad about and what continues to radicalize them. If you stop doing the things Palestinians are mad about, there will be far fewer mad people and far fewer attacks, opening up a path to peace. Iron Dome is a symptom of the problem.

Iron Dome is used to continue and defend the encroachment onto Palestinian land. The retaliation against Palestinians (often those who have nothing to do with attacks) using primarily 5.56 rounds supplied by US/NATO (likely paid for by your taxes if you speak English!), rockets sent into private homes, or straight up billy clubs, is wildly imbalanced. But propaganda arms like .il websites and "just asking questions" guys in the comment sections of social media websites perpetuate the notion that there is somehow some balance that is reached only by deploying Iron Dome batteries. Media critics call this both-sides-ism and the news media outlets use it incessantly to muddy the waters on complex problems by drawing false dichotomies just as you have.

> If you stop doing the things Palestinians are mad about, there will be far fewer mad people and far fewer attacks

Isn't this like telling a battered woman "if you stop doing the things your husband gets mad about, there will be far fewer beatings"?

No because the reason the Palestinians are mad is because Israel is violating international law. It’s like telling the husband if he stops beating his wife he’ll stop getting arrested

Only if the "battered woman" in question has moved into the man's home uninvited, taken away his keys, set up checkpoints at the front door and the door between the living room and the kitchen, and invited her friends from all over the world to move in, bringing guns.

Not really, simplification by analogies such as this always distort. You seem to imply Palestine is stronger.

Thanks for your answer. I have some more questions if you don't care.

1. Ive watched and read things about Israeli settlements on Palestinian land. Those settlements are not supported or protected by the Israeli government. Why isnt Hamas just shooting rockets at the settlements and not Israel proper? (I understand that there is considerable debate about what Israel proper is)

2. Can you expand on why the land is Palestine and not Jewish? Seems to me that the rough history is thousands of years of the Jewish people living there -> The ottoman empire -> British rule with Jewish settlers coming back to Israel and mixing with the people that lived there (where Palestine's claim comes in to play I believe) -> the UN partition of the land -> what we have now where the Israeli government has taken more and more of the land. I was brought up to believe that the land should be the Jewish people's land. Why do you believe that is wrong?

> Those settlements are not supported or protected by the Israeli government.

That's not strictly true. No matter what the government's official stance is, IDF soldiers are reported as helping Israeli settlers to raze Palestinian farms, orchards, and even homes on occasion. Just this year, Netanyahu "beefed up security" around the settlements, which sounds like military occupation because it is.[1] Even in cases where the government does not explicitly help the settlers, they don't punish violent crimes nor theft either.

> Why isnt Hamas just shooting rockets at the settlements and not Israel proper?

That's a good question. I don't have a good sense of what it's like on the ground so don't count my speculation for much, but I would guess that because Hamas knows their rockets aren't accurate (they're not designed to be, they're cheap and produced using poor equipment), they decide to launch them in directions where a positive hit is most likely. It may be that the settlements themselves are too small or sparse to have much real impact, even if it seems like it would be more symbolically relevant.

> Why do you believe that is wrong?

I believe what is wrong is the application of the word "should". Many societies have occupied that land historically, and the Abrahamic religions all consider it a site of immense power and importance. It's true that the region was the birthplace of Judaism and Christianity and that Islam was born further down the Arabian peninsula, but the history of the past 2000 years doesn't impose enough of a moral imperative to justify mass occupation and upheaval of people who are trying to live their lives. More glibly, if the religious folks are inflicting such pain and suffering on entire groups of people based on what amounts to in-group bias, I don't consider that pro-social and want that behavior to stop. We should not tolerate those who make people miserable and sometimes kill them in the name of some god.

[1] https://www.npr.org/2023/01/29/1152383010/israel-is-moving-t...

Thanks for that article. Even that article (which I am sure that NPR leans pro-Palestine), seems to indicate that the situation is fraught with wrongs on both sides.

I don't think I will be abandoning my american, conservative upbringing in this particular instance, but this has been super helpful.

It's not really complex or anything, what make this issue looks "hyper complex" is that the aggressor in this case is fully supported by the "Western" bloc with it's powerful media and it's hard and soft power, but morally it's a simple issue. When a stealer steal your home and kill your parents and children this makes them criminal for each moment they live in that house and for each breathe they take from the air of your home.

The issue is really simple, just watch this video of Jacob [1] (American zionist settler) telling the real owner of the house "If I didn't steal it someone else will", these people are committing their crimes in full awareness and without a shred of empathy or morality or anything, really.

[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KNqozQ8uaV8

I'll give another perspective from the comments already made: in this conflict you have as sides one technologically very advanced rich, democratic Western-aligned country against poor, badly organized oppressed people who are not even allowed to have a state. To me it's absolutely clear from which side we should be expecting constructive steps towards peace - and the fact that we're not seeing them says enough.

How much damage on average (measured in dollars) is caused if Iron Dome fails to intercept?

In the last round of ballistic excitement (called "Operation Shield and Arrow" by the Israelis), according to the Hebrew Wikipedia, 460 rockets had been shot into Israeli residential areas, of those 439 were intercepted and 21 weren't. Those 21 rockets killed 2 and injured 7 directly due to shrapnel and blast. For economic damage I couldn't find a report, but one of the deaths probably made a 3 story building in Rehovot condemned due to structural reasons. The costs of 3 bedrooms apartment in Rehovot appears to be around 2.2 mil ILS. It looks like there is at least 2 apartments per story. So around 13.2 mil ILS to find a new home for everyone. Therefor If these are representative damage of typical damage, so per rocket we get 0.1 deaths, 0.3 injury and 104k ILS.

Other forms of economic damage that should be included:

* People going to shelters after air alarms in the middle of work day

* Tourism impacts

* Stress/mental health

* Opportunity cost of having personnel man missile defense instead of other stuff.

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