TIL That each missile fired by Israels Iron Dome cost anywhere between 40k to 50k US per missile
https://wamu.org/story/23/10/12/heres-how-israels-iron-dome-stops-rockets-and-why-ukraine-doesnt-have-it/Open linkView original on lemmy.world364
Comments92
TBH, I think the Israel iron dome system is justified. Bombing Palestinians is not.
One is defensive and one is a genocide over land. Not really a hard choice for sane people.
It could be argued that Israel is free to unleash their campaign of genocide because the people in Israel do not experience the horrors themselves. There is no pressure to reach an agreement. Bringing the hostages back has been the only rallying cry by Israelis, but other than that, actually ending the genocide doesn't have much support.
It's similar to how so many consumer goods are produced through the use of slavery. That distance and lack of visibility mean there is little pressure from consumers to stop those practices.
So basically, your perspective is that a system that protects Israeli civilians is immoral because every single Israeli is immoral? Yeah, that seems very sane. /s
We do blame Israel. In the mean time, this piece of technology is actively saving the lives of innocent people. Of all the weird things to be upset about, the one that's explicitly defensive maybe the weirdest.
This is bordering on misinformation but I'm not going to act on that.
The Iron Dome is primarily used to protect civilians, although it may also incidentally or occasionally be used to protect military targets as well.
Israel does not use its own citizens as cover for military operations. Here is a map of military bases in Israel, which are separate from civilians as required by international law.
There is no similar map of military sites in Gaza because Hamas uses civilian cover for military operations, including launching international attacks, from schools, mosques, churches, and hospitals.
Operation Shark. This is literally Palestine taking a page from proto isrealis terrorists which by the by dug a significant amount of the smuggling tunnels which is also how Israel know they exist.
you're right, the Palestinians they literally drag around as human shields aren't citizens, they are just the people who lived on the land before the Israeli state decided that Palestine never existed. They do however make great reactive armor.
but that's also not new
https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/aug/14/israeli-forces-in-gaza-use-civilians-as-human-shields-against-possible-booby-traps
Oh so much better if they don't use their own civilians...
Implying that Israel gives even the remotest shit about international law seems like misinformation.
IIRC correctly Geneva conventions only apply if both sides adhere to it
Iron enables the genocide.
Not really a hard choice for sane people.
Nice alt account bro
No idea what that means 😂
There is zero justification for a colonial apartheid ethnostate. Over seventy years of crimes against humanity are not worth defending.
you say there is no justification for a colonial apartheid ethnosate, but if that were true, why "We must secure the existence of our people and a future for our children"
the scary thing is people who would otherwise be against fascism for some strange reason turn off their 1488 detectors when talking about the Nation state of Israel, and will gladly embrace the concept of the ethnostate as a moral good.
I think it's a bit more complicated than that. It's a messed up country, but it's in an extremely messed up part of the world. All of their neighbors are nondemocratic ethnostates, and not even the apartheid kind, they've completely driven Jewish people out of their countries. I don't think standing by and letting Isreal get overrun would be beneficial for the world. I don't support their offensive military actions but that doesn't mean I want to see what happens when Hamas/Hezbollah takes over their country.
you know, leave it to the nazis to cut all that text down to just 14 words
There are plenty of places in the west where they would be safe, secure, and could flourish. Hell, many of them are citizens of these countries. My only concern would be letting such a large amount of fascists migrate when we're already combating the rise of fascism in the west.
That's pretty unrealistic in my opinion. Jewish people see Isreal as their ancestral homeland and they are already risking their lives to stay there. Millions of people would likely die rather than leave.
Two wrongs don't make a right. It was wrong to push out Palestinians, but now that Israeli people have been their for generations it would be wrong to push them out too. There arent many human settlements without a record of eviction and occupation. Even the native American tribes occupied, annexed, and eradicated each other for millenia before Europeans arrived. In my opinion, once you live somewhere for a few generations it's your land and you can't be kicked out- that just adds more suffering to the world.
Oh yes, they've been there for generations so they get to just genocide the people that lives there because it's their land. What the actual fuck?
That is not remotely what I said
That's how they've conducted themselves the entirety of the time they've been there, time for them to leave.
Bro. If they take land they're at war and invaders can be killed. I would suggest for kids sake they do not bring their children while hostily occupying a territory they have no legitimate claim to.
Moreover when the founding acts of your country are literal terrorist acts against civilians you lose the right to bitch when the same people slap back.
You're suggesting that if I take your family house I should get to keep it so long as I use force long enough to have some kids.
That's not quite what I said. I said several generations but that's the idea- there is no point in evicting your great-grandchildren due to an illegal and immoral action you undertook.
Suppose the year is 3000 and Israel still exists and the palestinean people still want the land back. The Israeli "occupiers" have now been there for 1000 years. Would you still support giving the land to the Palestinians?
I'm sure you'll be that generous while you and yours live in streets.
The Palestinians have been there iirc 7500yrs, Arab occupation predates organized religion as a whole. Also yes, dumb hypothetical though.
How about just starving them? Much cheaper!
Cheap for a missile, but using soft power tends to be more effective, both economically and less destructive. You know, like not pissing off all your neighbors and taking folk's land.
but then how will I take their land?
Allow me to introduce the G brothers - Gerrymandering and Gentrification.
they only work once you have the land
That's actually a very low price for an anti-air missile. For comparison, the Stinger shoulder-fired missile costs more than twice as much. A Patriot missile costs four million dollars (but is much more capable). Presumably minimizing cost was a high priority when this missile was designed. Nonetheless, the cost asymmetry is one reason why degrading the ability of Hamas and Hezbollah to fire missiles at Israel is important.
Absolutely. In the late '80s I was part of an anti-tank guided missile evaluation; each rocket cost around $70k then, so around $185k per today.
Hamas and Hezbollah are firing any tubes filled with any propellant they can find. you want to reduce the capabilities of groups like Hamas and Hezbollah? don't fucking go around running an apartheid ethnostate and annexing land on the basis of blood and soil.
Also, depends on what version and flavor of PAC it is
It's expensive AF to operate which is why Israel has been working hard on "Iron Beam", which uses lasers instead of missiles, to supplement it and reduce the cost of operation. Iron Beam is supposed to become active in 2025.
Ukraine doesn't have Iron Dome because of cost and scale. Israel is 22,145 square kilometers while Ukraine is 603,628 square kilometers. It probably cost 10 Billion to build an Israel sized Iron Dome so a Ukraine sized one would cost upwards of $300 Billion and operating the thing would like be a billion dollars a month for active combat.
As an aside the United States also has ground based directed energy weapons. There's even a 50KW mobile version built on the Stryker platform called DE M-SHORAD. 100KW+ versions are supposed to be rolling out next year.
I hate war and all of that, but shooting missiles with Lasers sounds really fucking cool
Iron Beam sounds like the Temu version of Iron Dome
That doesn’t sound like an unreasonable price for a missile interceptor; those things have to be fast and precise. If anything, it looks like they have reasonable economies of scale going for them.
I here I initially only had an issue with the phrasing "Each missile [...] per missile".
We can haz better healthcare and less income inequality?
Look! A communist! Get em!
🔱😡🔥
Each missile per missile? Dang.
Meanwhile they're not even supplying Gaza with Iron Dome to protect civilians from the ongoing genocide...smh
If you don't mind me ask what does smh mean?
Shake/Shaking my head
I always thought it was 'so much hate'. Have I been wrong this whole time?
Yeah I've never heard it being used as 'so much hate'
Nah. I've been thinking the same all the while on reddit. Trust Lemmy to be a place where I learn things.
Shaking my head
I still read it as "smack my head" even after I learned this. As in "facepalm."
Just as good
I usually take SMH as them saying they're nodding in disapproval or judgment. It's kind of like how a wise adult would see two immature kids having a disagreement over something insignificant and easy to resolve, but their egos get in the way. The adult would nod and perhaps sigh or say, "tsk, tsk," to themselves. Anyone else see it this way or differently?
Ugh, that title.
The system can be overwhelmed by having too many incoming rockets, so it does have its limits.
Why would it? The US is paying for it.
So you hope that Hamas and Hezbollah continue firing rockets at civilians?
How about ending the colonization? That's the only way to peace.
Alright, so what land do Israelis get and what land do Palestinians get? No matter your answer, one side is going to be pissed which leads to more conflict.
Almost everybody who want a two state solution believe in the pre-1967 borders. I personally prefer a one stste solution thought
A two-state confederation seems good to me. Independent national governance, with bilateral laws for basic things like residency rights across the states and local voting rights based on residency.
why is it that everyone who defends Israels right to genocide always ends up calling for an ethnostate?
Probably has something to do with the fact that when the Jewish people try to live in other states, they almost always end up persecuted.
IDK man, I'm not seeing a genocidal Romani ethnostate, being a people universally discriminated against isn't something special, and the others aren't founding genocidal ethnostates
Israelis can return to their countries of origin.
Sure bud. Just like all of the Americans can...
It's only been seventy years, bud. Maybe they should have conducted themselves like decent fucking human beings, but that of course would be the antithesis of the colonizer ethos
Maybe learn some history? Jews have been moving to/from Israel for pretty much as long as Judaism has existed.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aliyah
Usually there are waves when they start getting persecuted in said countries of origin.
They aren't civilians, they are colonists.
What happens after it bankrupts them?
They would no longer be in position of power to decide the term of a potential two state solution
So no Israel is bankrupt and has no power or military capabilities, who has the power to decide what kind of solution is enacted?
It essentially prevented a full scale armed conflict like this past year from 2011-2023. How many lives has it saved over that 12 years?
The lives they kill are worth so much more so its worth it to them?
How do they justify stuff like this.
“We think these people are worthless and we want their land. So now we spend big capital destroying that land”
Not a single rhetoric i can make up with makes even evil sense.
What is their left to gain after all the costs?
The Iron Dome is defensive. It kills rockets, not people.
Colonists can never claim to be defending themselves.
I believe the Iron Dome is literally just a defensive tool though, like it intercepts missiles fired at it
to quote bomber Harris: "The Nazis entered this war under the rather childish delusion that they were going to bomb everybody else and nobody was going to bomb them"
imagine if the Germans had an iron dome
What are you even saying?