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Comment by mike_h | Hacker News Reader

He’s the largest individual donor to the IDF.

Wait...individuals can donate to a country's army?

No, you can't donate directly to the IDF, but turns out you can just make stuff up as long as it fits one's world views.

There's a lot of people making this stuff up on the internet then.

Yes you can donate (why did you add the word "directly"?). It just passes through intermediary organizations, such as the Friends of the IDF. There are even non profits that pay for "lone soldiers" -- international mercenaries -- to take part in the genocide in Gaza. Hundreds of thousands of "lone soldiers" took part, I believe something like 20,000 came from the US alone.

Sure! And in return Oracle gets sweet IDF contracts payed by the US gov.

So we just blatantly lie now because "Israel=bad"? You can't donate directly to the IDF. US funding isn’t paying Oracle through some back door. If you’ve got a real source, show it—otherwise it’s just nonsense.

Thank you for asking! I thought I was just making funny comment on political situation. After quick search it turns out its not funny… just predictible.

“Larry Ellison donates $16.6 million, says, ‘Since Israel’s founding, we have called on the brave men and women of the IDF to defend our home’”

Oh and i know FIDF - Friends of the IDF (nonprofit through which these donations are going) are just that. Just friends.

There is a huge war in europe (largest since WW2) and both sides rely on donations from individuals

Yes. I donated to the Ukrainian army and others can easily too

That’s misleading. You can’t directly donate to the IDF—people give to NGOs that support soldiers’ welfare, not combat operations or weapons. And while Ellison has given millions to FIDF, there’s no evidence he’s “the largest donor,” and no public ranking shows that. You can dislike Israel without inventing facts.

Why do you have such an issue with the donation to the IDF? I understand disputing that he's the largest donor, but I doubt he has ever written a big cheque directly to Trump (or in fact anyone except his family) either, is it also unclear whether he's a Trump donor?

Even if there were no mechanism for donating to the IDF available to the general public, do you believe someone like Ellison couldn't easily give money to whomever he wanted?

He financed facilities on an IDF base.

I think we can leave the pedantry for the ICC and just stop at him being a rather nasty genocide supporter regardless of the details.

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