Country A attacks vastly more powerful neighbor. They have no defensive infrastructure (for civilians), no plans for minimizing civilian deaths, no hope of actually winning the war they started. There strategy is to fight in a dense urban environment among their own civilians while firing thousands of unguided rockets at their enemy, knowing the retaliation is going to be horrific with no way for them to stop it (other than surrendering, but they would rather all die).
Country B has possibly the best missile defense system in the world; mainly because their neighbors shoot unguided rockets into their city. They work to defend their citizens at all costs even with expensive missiles and a protracted military campaign. They design cutting edge laser missile defense to help them alleviate the burden of protecting their citizens. The only reason they do not have to completely annihilate their neighbor who's shooting rockets at them is because they are able to intercept most of them. If those rockets were actually landing and causing tens of thousands of civilian casualties their retaliation would have to be far more deadly.
People on the internet: "actually its the civilians from country A who need defenses"
Country A is resisting a 75 year violent occupation and apartheid (see stats posted earlier) and currently suffering genocide. Anyone denying that is no different than anyone denying the holocaust - equally vile and reprehensible. But everyone somehow seems to conveniently forget that part. Don't take my word for it, list of apartheid and genocide reports below.
The reason this doesn't make the discourse, even on communities like Hacker News which are supposed to be "smart", is because of decades of the West being brainwashed to the point where Islamophobia is normalized and ubiquitous.
Repeating it a hundred times doesn't make it true.
And the brainwashing is about normalizing antisemitism. The term "islamophobia" is the equivalent of playing the race card. We aren't afraid of Muslims, we are afraid of the radicals that will use their money to cause great trouble as a route to power.
Fundamentally, you are allowing them to use dead Palestinians as weapons against Israel. That which works is rewarded--by believing the propaganda you are encouraging the killing of Palestinians.
And if you actually care about genocide why blame Israel when the real genocides are going on in Africa? Is it perhaps because the initiators of all of the ongoing genocides are Iranian-backed Islamist forces?
Nobody else comes close to Israel in protecting civilians in combat zones.
And let's take a critical eye to that data you linked. I'm having a hard time with the filters but we can see enough without: The fatalities are nearly 90% male. That implies that probably 80% are in some fashion combatants or combatant-adjacent.
And note that the death toll for the recent war includes all deaths. Natural causes, internal combat, rockets falling short (historically, ~25% of Gaza deaths, but probably not this time), combatants and civilians. As well as some that are fake.
And Hamas had the power to end the war at any time--return the hostages, the world would quickly have stopped Israel. Thus we can conclude that Hamas wanted the war despite what it did to their population.
Defensive weapons technology is how you get less conflict though.
When some idiot in the ME decides to shoot something at Israel, the character of the response demanded by the population depends heavily on whether any Israelis die or property is destroyed.
Israel didn't aggressively bomb Gaza till October 7 killed a lot of Israelis, even though they were regularly shooting down Hamas launched rockets with Iron Dome.
There is a practical gulf in political and diplomatic options depending on if an attack lands or does not, so much so that whether or not someone can shoot down incoming weaponry is a factor in some diplomatic decisions (I.e. Iran firing missiles at US bases in Qatar).
> Defensive weapons technology is how you get less conflict though.
I'm not convinced. Responding purely defensively allows your attacker to systematically probe every weakness in your defenses without risk of harm to themselves (e.g. how Russia is playing cat&mouse with the EU).
Frankly where's the evidence of this? My country of Australia has no fear of being attacked, yet we haven't launched an endeavor of conquest of South East Asia.'
Real life doesn't break down into simple narratives. The facts in the Middle East are that post-October 7 Israel aggressively bombarded Gaza at a scale and intensity where it did not previously, and a substantial chunk of the population supported that. In particular, it felt compelled to significantly escalate kinetic action against Hamas and Iran where it had not previously.
Post 9/11 the US aggressively invaded 2 sovereign nations it otherwise had little interest in and occupied them for 20 years.
These are all scales and levels of military action which were precipitated by successful attacks that killed civilians. If 9/11 hijackers had been stopped in the planning stage, does the US still invade Afgahnistan? Probably not - it wasn't on anyone's cards. Iraq maybe but the conditions were set by that strike hitting the way it did.
Israel invests in defending their civilians with technology like Iron Beam.
In contrast the Gazan government strategically uses humans shields [2, 3] and despite this the majority of Palestinians still support starting this war by attacking civilians on Oct 7th [1]. Defense technology doesn’t help if you don’t want it unfortunately.
Hamas also has hundreds of miles of tunnels which civilians aren’t allowed to use.
To say that israel invests in defense is at least 1/4 untrue, since the US sends billions every year. The US gave them about 7b cash last year, which is around 1/4 of their defense budget, and doesn’t include things like stationing carriers nearby, or doing airstrikes on houthi blockades.
> To say that israel invests in defense is at least 1/4 untrue, since the US sends billions every year.
This is factually incorrect. The amount of money that the US gives Israel is completely and totally irrelevant to whether or not Israel also invests their own money in defense.
The fact that the US has a problem with foreign influence literally does not matter for the statement above.
To be clear, I don't agree with the GP's implied suggestion that Israel is more defensive than offensive, but making objectively incorrect statements is not a valid way to refute that.
That the US contributes doesn’t take away from the billions Israel did and does invest. The US defense contractors also get a big chunk of that aid.
The US also gives similar levels of military aid to Egypt as well. The EU and US give billions to Ukraine.
Gaza also receives billions in aid; substantial amounts of which has been hihacked and looted. For example this lady summer the UN reported that 88% of their aid trucks in Gaza were looted [1].
> the Gazan government strategically uses humans shields
This just means Israel knows they're hitting women and children every time they send a bomb their way.
> the majority of Palestinians still support starting this war
Palestine isn't a democracy with well documented preferences. Israel is though, so why don't you say that a majority of Israelis are fine with the killing of women and children in Gaza?
elcritch, you're beating around the bush but strongly suggesting there's a reasonable justification (not just an explanation) for killing women and children if it suits someone's needs. Does this apply just to Israel killing people in Gaza or universally valid? Because I distinctly remember the US going to war over WMD that never existed. So elcritch, are you saying US women and children are fair game now?
1) The average death per bomb was less than 1. Strikes mostly hit things which had already been evacuated.
2) When human shields get hit we blame the side that put them in harm's way, not the side that harmed them. Just look at the criminal trials in police actions--a hostage dies when SWAT hits a place, the murder rap lands on the person who took the hostage even if it turns out to be a police bullet in the hostage.
And your note about WMD--said WMD existed. On paper. We read the paper, didn't realize it was underlings lying to Saddam.
> there's a reasonable justification (not just an explanation) for killing women and children if it suits someone's needs
The Law of Armed Conflict specifies exactly when it considers such a reasonable justification to exist, which is not "never". You don't get to plop down women and children in front of military installations and go "neener neener" like you're a child on the school playground.
Country A attacks vastly more powerful neighbor. They have no defensive infrastructure (for civilians), no plans for minimizing civilian deaths, no hope of actually winning the war they started. There strategy is to fight in a dense urban environment among their own civilians while firing thousands of unguided rockets at their enemy, knowing the retaliation is going to be horrific with no way for them to stop it (other than surrendering, but they would rather all die).
Country B has possibly the best missile defense system in the world; mainly because their neighbors shoot unguided rockets into their city. They work to defend their citizens at all costs even with expensive missiles and a protracted military campaign. They design cutting edge laser missile defense to help them alleviate the burden of protecting their citizens. The only reason they do not have to completely annihilate their neighbor who's shooting rockets at them is because they are able to intercept most of them. If those rockets were actually landing and causing tens of thousands of civilian casualties their retaliation would have to be far more deadly.
People on the internet: "actually its the civilians from country A who need defenses"
Country A is resisting a 75 year violent occupation and apartheid (see stats posted earlier) and currently suffering genocide. Anyone denying that is no different than anyone denying the holocaust - equally vile and reprehensible. But everyone somehow seems to conveniently forget that part. Don't take my word for it, list of apartheid and genocide reports below.
The reason this doesn't make the discourse, even on communities like Hacker News which are supposed to be "smart", is because of decades of the West being brainwashed to the point where Islamophobia is normalized and ubiquitous.
Genocide accusations:
- Amnesty International - https://zeteo.com/p/amnesty-concludes-israel-genocide-gaza
- Human Rights Watch - https://www.hrw.org/news/2024/12/19/israels-crime-exterminat...
- Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders) - https://msf.org.uk/issues/gaza-genocide
- University Network for Human Rights - https://www.humanrightsnetwork.org/projects/genocide-in-gaza
- B'Tselem - https://zeteo.com/p/israeli-human-rights-group-says-israel
- Al-Haq - https://www.alhaq.org/publications/25781.html
- Palestinian Centre for Human Rights - https://pchrgaza.org/category/genocide-against-gaza/
- Physicians for Human Rights - Israel
- United Nations Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied - Palestinian Territory - https://zeteo.com/p/united-nations-un-gaza-genocide-israel
- The International Association of Genocide Scholars - https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/sep/01/israel-committ...
Apartheid accusations:
- Amnesty International - https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2022/03/israel-opt-is...
- Human Rights Watch - https://www.hrw.org/report/2021/04/27/threshold-crossed/isra...
- B'Tselem - https://www.btselem.org/publications/fulltext/202101_this_is...
- Al-Haq - https://www.alhaq.org/advocacy/16183.html
- Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) - https://www.alhaq.org/advocacy/16183.html
- Al Mezan Centre for Human Rights - https://www.alhaq.org/advocacy/19761.html
- Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association - https://www.alhaq.org/advocacy/20931.html
- UN Special Rapporteur Michael Lynk - https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2022/03/israels-55-y...
- UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) - https://www.alhaq.org/advocacy/16324.html
- Human Sciences Research Council of South Africa - https://www.alhaq.org/advocacy/7207.html
- International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) - Referenced in multiple coalition statements
- BADIL Resource Center - https://badil.org/press-releases/592.html
- Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies (CIHRS) - https://www.alhaq.org/advocacy/17012.html
- Palestinian Coalition of 8 Organizations - https://www.alhaq.org/advocacy/20931.html
Gobbels.
Repeating it a hundred times doesn't make it true.
And the brainwashing is about normalizing antisemitism. The term "islamophobia" is the equivalent of playing the race card. We aren't afraid of Muslims, we are afraid of the radicals that will use their money to cause great trouble as a route to power.
Fundamentally, you are allowing them to use dead Palestinians as weapons against Israel. That which works is rewarded--by believing the propaganda you are encouraging the killing of Palestinians.
And if you actually care about genocide why blame Israel when the real genocides are going on in Africa? Is it perhaps because the initiators of all of the ongoing genocides are Iranian-backed Islamist forces?
1 reply →
You don't get to "resist" your neighbors existence because you want to claim their territory for yourself.
1 reply →
What kind of argument is that? All civilians should be protected.
The defenses they need are against Hamas.
Nobody else comes close to Israel in protecting civilians in combat zones.
And let's take a critical eye to that data you linked. I'm having a hard time with the filters but we can see enough without: The fatalities are nearly 90% male. That implies that probably 80% are in some fashion combatants or combatant-adjacent.
And note that the death toll for the recent war includes all deaths. Natural causes, internal combat, rockets falling short (historically, ~25% of Gaza deaths, but probably not this time), combatants and civilians. As well as some that are fake.
And Hamas had the power to end the war at any time--return the hostages, the world would quickly have stopped Israel. Thus we can conclude that Hamas wanted the war despite what it did to their population.
>> Nobody else comes close to Israel in protecting civilians in combat zones.
"Israeli military’s own data indicates civilian death rate of 83% in Gaza war" - https://www.theguardian.com/world/ng-interactive/2025/aug/21...
Defensive weapons technology is how you get less conflict though.
When some idiot in the ME decides to shoot something at Israel, the character of the response demanded by the population depends heavily on whether any Israelis die or property is destroyed.
Israel didn't aggressively bomb Gaza till October 7 killed a lot of Israelis, even though they were regularly shooting down Hamas launched rockets with Iron Dome.
There is a practical gulf in political and diplomatic options depending on if an attack lands or does not, so much so that whether or not someone can shoot down incoming weaponry is a factor in some diplomatic decisions (I.e. Iran firing missiles at US bases in Qatar).
> Defensive weapons technology is how you get less conflict though.
I'm not convinced. Responding purely defensively allows your attacker to systematically probe every weakness in your defenses without risk of harm to themselves (e.g. how Russia is playing cat&mouse with the EU).
It’s not clear that’s true. States which don’t fear being attacked are more likely to attack other states
Frankly where's the evidence of this? My country of Australia has no fear of being attacked, yet we haven't launched an endeavor of conquest of South East Asia.'
Real life doesn't break down into simple narratives. The facts in the Middle East are that post-October 7 Israel aggressively bombarded Gaza at a scale and intensity where it did not previously, and a substantial chunk of the population supported that. In particular, it felt compelled to significantly escalate kinetic action against Hamas and Iran where it had not previously.
Post 9/11 the US aggressively invaded 2 sovereign nations it otherwise had little interest in and occupied them for 20 years.
These are all scales and levels of military action which were precipitated by successful attacks that killed civilians. If 9/11 hijackers had been stopped in the planning stage, does the US still invade Afgahnistan? Probably not - it wasn't on anyone's cards. Iraq maybe but the conditions were set by that strike hitting the way it did.
2 replies →
Life is not fair.
Palestinians patrons need to tell them they aren't going to win militarily against the Israeli's
Not today, but the fertily rate is 2.9 in Israel and 3.9 in Gaza. Even if demographics isn't quite destiny it's generally the way to bet.
Just a reminder pushing people to start wars they can't win is shitty.
2 replies →
[flagged]
Israel invests in defending their civilians with technology like Iron Beam.
In contrast the Gazan government strategically uses humans shields [2, 3] and despite this the majority of Palestinians still support starting this war by attacking civilians on Oct 7th [1]. Defense technology doesn’t help if you don’t want it unfortunately.
Hamas also has hundreds of miles of tunnels which civilians aren’t allowed to use.
1: https://www.pcpsr.org/en/node/1000#:~:text=The%20Trump%20Pla... 2: https://stratcomcoe.org/cuploads/pfiles/hamas_human_shields.... 3: https://www.fdd.org/analysis/2023/11/01/hamas-officials-admi...
To say that israel invests in defense is at least 1/4 untrue, since the US sends billions every year. The US gave them about 7b cash last year, which is around 1/4 of their defense budget, and doesn’t include things like stationing carriers nearby, or doing airstrikes on houthi blockades.
Us $ to israel: https://usafacts.org/answers/how-much-foreign-aid-does-the-u...
Israel defense budget: https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israel-raise-defen...
> To say that israel invests in defense is at least 1/4 untrue, since the US sends billions every year.
This is factually incorrect. The amount of money that the US gives Israel is completely and totally irrelevant to whether or not Israel also invests their own money in defense.
The fact that the US has a problem with foreign influence literally does not matter for the statement above.
To be clear, I don't agree with the GP's implied suggestion that Israel is more defensive than offensive, but making objectively incorrect statements is not a valid way to refute that.
2 replies →
That the US contributes doesn’t take away from the billions Israel did and does invest. The US defense contractors also get a big chunk of that aid.
The US also gives similar levels of military aid to Egypt as well. The EU and US give billions to Ukraine.
Gaza also receives billions in aid; substantial amounts of which has been hihacked and looted. For example this lady summer the UN reported that 88% of their aid trucks in Gaza were looted [1].
1: https://www.fdd.org/analysis/2025/08/05/un-reports-88-percen...
7 replies →
Nitpick here: Your link #1 turns out to have been being manipulated by Hamas.
I do agree the Hamas strategy was explicitly about getting civilians killed, though.
> the Gazan government strategically uses humans shields
This just means Israel knows they're hitting women and children every time they send a bomb their way.
> the majority of Palestinians still support starting this war
Palestine isn't a democracy with well documented preferences. Israel is though, so why don't you say that a majority of Israelis are fine with the killing of women and children in Gaza?
elcritch, you're beating around the bush but strongly suggesting there's a reasonable justification (not just an explanation) for killing women and children if it suits someone's needs. Does this apply just to Israel killing people in Gaza or universally valid? Because I distinctly remember the US going to war over WMD that never existed. So elcritch, are you saying US women and children are fair game now?
> are you saying US women and children are fair game now?
Women have been serving in combat roles in the U.S. military for decades now…
1) The average death per bomb was less than 1. Strikes mostly hit things which had already been evacuated.
2) When human shields get hit we blame the side that put them in harm's way, not the side that harmed them. Just look at the criminal trials in police actions--a hostage dies when SWAT hits a place, the murder rap lands on the person who took the hostage even if it turns out to be a police bullet in the hostage.
And your note about WMD--said WMD existed. On paper. We read the paper, didn't realize it was underlings lying to Saddam.
> there's a reasonable justification (not just an explanation) for killing women and children if it suits someone's needs
The Law of Armed Conflict specifies exactly when it considers such a reasonable justification to exist, which is not "never". You don't get to plop down women and children in front of military installations and go "neener neener" like you're a child on the school playground.