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Comment by ahtihn | Hacker News Reader

Why are we paying so much attention to what's happening in Israel then?

A constant flow of USA taxpayer dollars, and German taxpayer euros, is the only reason Israel is still afloat. Continuing the war is the decision of US and German voters. Other western countries are also nominal supposed to be stopping their allies from doing this and aren't.

That doesn't really answer the question.

why do we (residents of western countries) pay attention to Israel? There's nothing relevant to our lives happening there. It's not more relevant than Ethiopia or Sudan.

Israel is the world's 7th largest arms exporter but only the 14th largest importer. It in fact sold this year around $8bn to Europe alone (Arrow-3 to Germany, and Achilles Shield missile defense to Greece).

The concept that Israel relies on foreign weapons for its survival is detached from reality. Yes, there are things you can't replace like F35 and submarines, but in drones, missiles, air defence, radars, armored vehicles, communication systems etc - Israel is amongst the worldwide leaders.

Israel will cease to exist as soon as the US stops giving it political cover and fighting wars on its behalf.

History is not on your side. US did not support Israel until the 1970's. Israel is far, far stronger today then it was back then. Israel will always have friends, it has a lot to offer and situated in an interesting area.

History is on my side, more and more people stand against Israel every day. It will be like apartheid South Africa soon enough.

It's a completely different situation than South Africa in so many ways. Israel is very well integrated into the global supply chain, has the power of the Jewish diaspora, is majority Jewish (unlike Afrikaners which were a small minority), and is a nuclear power.

I agree with the gist of your statment, but apartheid South Africa was a nuclear power as well

Yeah, it's so much worse than South Africa and Israel has had a much larger negative impact on the US and rest of world.

> has the power of the Jewish diaspora, is majority Jewish

Curious what you mean by this since we're told over and over that Israel doesn't represent all Jews? Regardless, it's a tiny country with almost no natural resources that has rapidly accelerating mass opposition. Israel cannot defeat the entire planet.

With all due respect, I think you've been radicalized to the point you think the world is going to come together with the singular goal of destroying Israel. No, it will not. Israel's economy is very strong, in fact it's been getting stronger as the war with the Islamists has gone on. It's a technological and military powerhouse. European skies are defended by Israeli systems. A large part of your iPhone was designed in Israel. If you've been running any workload on Amazon, GCP or Azure, chances are you've been using Israeli tech.

Relax, Israel is not going anywhere :) Yes there is a growing anti-Israeli sentiment, but that will go away with time. The strategic gains Israel has made over the past 3 years, though, may hold.

You're vastly misreading (or more accurately misrepresenting) how angry people are with Israel. Regardless, there's no point in continuing this conversation. The last thing you should be doing is accusing others of being radicalized while you use terms like "Islamists", that's disgusting.

Not really true, first German taxpayer euros don't go to Israel, second without Israel could pay for USA taxpayer dollars from their aid with some debt increase.

Because it affects gas prices.

Israel's conflict with Iran, maybe. Israel's conflict with Hamas is irrelevant though and that's what people are protesting.

Because Israel is manipulating the US. We literally have laws curtailing freedom of speech just to stop people from boycotting Israel. The vast majority of our government is bribed or blackmailed by Israel. We currently have a Zionist hawk consolidating all of our mass media (Larry Ellison). TikTok was forced to move ownership to Zionists in the US due to Israel. Our tax dollars go to Israel. The last two presidents (and probably more) have gone on tv and lied to every US citizen on behalf of Israel...

It's a pressing and important issue, which is why it's getting a lot of attention.

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