Us to send 17.6billion to Israel

[EasterIssland]

17.6 billion would include funds to help replenish Israel's missile defense systems, procure additional advanced weapons systems, and produce artillery and other munitions

why
why does Israel need so much money if they’re such a successful country
why Israel? Why not any other country?
What benefit does usa get from funding a conflict ?

can anyone explain why does usa keep on aiding Israel when this money could save many lives around the world?

https://www.reuters.com/world/us-house-panel-recommends-176-billion-military-aid-israel-2024-02-03/

You seriously don't see the issue for the United States (a NATO member) if Russia takes over Ukraine? Wow.

Sorry, that was to @LifeExperience

@MissyB1
. I believe Hamas would agree if the deal for the future was right. They have already offered to return all hostages who have survived the bombing in return for a permanent ceasefire'

When did they offer this? Do you have a source please?

Will try to copy and paste but some sites don’t let you - or I’m just rubbish at it!
https://www.ft.com/content/7b7dc2e2-0773-4409-ae07-ddcaea50dee2

https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2024/1/22/how-israel-has-repeatedly-rejected-hamas-truce-offers#:~:text=On%20Sunday%2C%20Netanyahu%20rejected%20a,of%20Hamas%20governance%20over%20Gaza.

on the second link scroll down and you should find it.

Basically Hamas said that the hostages would be released if there was a permanent ceasefire and withdrawal of IDF. Without that there can be no negotiations. I believe that was in response to a possible offer of short term halt in bombing by Israel again.
However all that was a couple of weeks ago, and I believe work by other countries on negotiations have been moving forward since then. Hence it’s difficult to find many links now as the situation changes. Surprised people missed this? I heard it on channel 4 news.

Palestinian civilians are not Hamas so not sure what your point is??? 🤔
The money going to Israel is not to feed Israeli citizens you do know that right?

The money going to Israel is to protect its citizens though, isn't it .@MissyB1 ?

So what's the difference? If they're bombed from all sides and not protected then they won't need food

At this point, Israel is perfectly capable of defending itself without input from the US.

The difference is scale. I don’t think what Palestinians have received is even approaching a 10th of what Israel has received from the US.

@MissyB1 so, if I read the al jazeera piece right (dont have an FT sub) the proposed deal was not just a ceasefire in exchange for hostages. The deal included recognising hamas in Gaza - surely you can see why that is off the table? Hamas is an authoritarian regime attempting to impose sharia law. It seized power in a coup & does not have democratic legitimacy. While it ammended its charter noone believes that was anything other than a cynical move as it has since repeated again & again 'from the river to the sea' which explicitly rules out 2 states & said it will repeat october 7th. It has consistently attacked Israel with rockets and broke the last ceasefire in the most barbarous way imaginable. Of course Israel isnt going to recognise Hamas. People are always telling us, yes we agree Hamas is terrible, Hamas does not equal Palestinian people, so who on earth would expect Israel to recognise them? The deal also included releasing palestinian prisoners, some of them I expect, will have attacked and even murdered Israelis in terrorist attacks. The hostages on the other hand are entirely innocent. Some palestinians will be imprisoned without due process, undoubtedly, and may be innocent, but we know that some of the hostages were peace activists & people sympathetic to the peace process. You can see why this is not a serious proposal surely?

I really wish mumsnet would stamp down on misinformation on this topic. It's really annoying to read the same misinformation spread repeatedly. Things like Hamas broke a ceasefire on Oct 7. It feels really disrespectful to the 100s of Palestinians Israel killed last year prior to Oct 7 to just write them out of history or like their lives didn't matter enough to count as 'breaking a ceasefire' but when Israeli lives are lost it counts. Especially when 2023 was the deadliest year on record for children in the West Bank prior to Oct 7. There was no ceasefire for Palestinians.

There were also Israelis killed intermittently by Palestinians prior to 7 October, which you fail to mention. There was a ceasefire in the commonly understood meaning of the term. 7/10 was a grotesque escalation which Hamas knew would trigger a massive retaliation.

@SharonEllis This is somewhat selective. Never has a democratic legitimacy been a prerequisite for Israeli recognition. Never has it been a requirement that a government has not gained power through a coup. Both Israel and the US have been more than happy to have relations with Egypt when the current Egyptian leadership attained its power through a coup overthrowing the only democratically elected leader in the country’s history.

I concede Hamas is a different story because it is a matter of security and would require ceding territory, but let’s stop pretending that Israel is somehow less self-serving than everybody else. Israeli leadership doesn’t care about the personal safety of those hostages. They have unfortunately been serving their purpose right where they are as a justification.

No sorry I don't agree.

On March 1 was the The Huwara pogram, the violence from Israeli settlers was so brutral that an Israeli commander called it a pogrom.

In June there were 5 days of pograms where gangs of armed settlers, often in the hundreds, descended on 17 different Palestinian villages, lighting dozens of homes and cars on fire and shooting at Palestinian homes. The attacks by Jewish settlers prompted a raid by the Israeli military, which took part in and escalated the violence, turning their weapons on Palestinian residents and preventing critical medical care from reaching the injured.

The violence was escalating all year to prior to Oct 7. The international community had voiced their concerns at the rising level of violence from Israeli settlers and the IDF. Israel approved more and more funding to take more land from Palestinians inciting the violence from the settlers. It was anything but a ceasefire. It was a brutal year for Palestinians.

You're talking about the West Bank, run by the PA. I'm talking about gaza run by Hamas. Two different geographical areas, two different governments, two very different issues. I agree the behaviour of settlers, encouraged by extremists in the government, is a disgrace. Dealing with the illegal settlements has to be part of any wider peace settlement.

That may or may not be true and there is huge protest in Israel against netanyahu over the hostages. The sooner he goes the better for everyone. However you must recognise that noone in their right mind would expect Israel to accept Hamas as a legitimate government? And as pro palestine protesters keep telling us palestinians are not hamas so any proper deal that is good for ordinary palestinians needs to exclude hamas.

So you are saying if there was violence in one part of Israel it would have no effect on the rest of Israel? Palestinian territories are separated geographically but families are spread across both areas. People in Gaza love and care for people in the West Bank and vice versa. The freedom of movement restrictions that Israel imposes obviously impairs how much they can see each other but it is disingenuous to pretend that there is no relationship between the two and that violence in one doesn't effect people in the other.

Also to add if they are such separate areas with nothing to do with each other then why have Israel upped the violence in the West Bank again since Oct 7? Israel can keep them physically separate from each other but they can't severe the bonds between them.

But completely different issue in terms of whether Hamas, as an organisation, has a place in any peace process which is what we are discussing @ProfessorPipsqueak

I was talking about your misinformation about there being a ceasefire before Oct 7.

I've already responded to that. Your conflation of the WB/PA & Gaza/Hamas amounts to misinformation.

And I've already explained that I am conflating nothing. Israel can't be violent and murderous towards Palestinians but then say they are in a ceasefire. It doesn't matter which Palestinians Israel choose to be violent and murderous towards, the two are linked and always will be. Israel can't escalate the violence again in the West Bank post 7/10 using 7/10 as an excuse and then pretend they don't see the two as linked when it suits them. So we will have to agree to disagree.

Not all US politicians agree with the US funding that is going towards the war. Some are openly opposed like Bernie Sanders.

"For the sake of the Palestinian people and our own standing in the world we must not provide another dollar for the Netanyahu war machine."

https://twitter.com/SenSanders/status/1754232724322156767?t=qKdZJ27HEs2ufq1INkEtrA&s=19

I believe trump isn’t either happy to fund Israel

this is from a few weeks ago
https://www.voanews.com/amp/trump-becoming-biggest-obstacle-to-border-deal-to-fund-ukraine-israel/7455908.html

@SharonEllis Realistically though, is there ever going to be a Palestinian organisation which Israel feels is benign enough to implement a two state solution with? When it looked like there might have been a pathway to unified Palestinian leadership, Netanyahu got in there to play, divide and conquer.

The same question can be flipped, are Palestinians ever going to put any sort of faith in an Israeli government or any organisation affiliated with Israel? It was unlikely before, after this, it feels impossible.

There is no version of a two-state solution, which does not involve extremely hostile Palestinian leadership. That now remains the case, whether Israel eradicates Hamas or not, and I think at some stage Israel has got to make peace with that. I know that is a very harsh thing to say, but the alternative is that at some point, a one state solution would be forced and whoever suggests it would be peaceful or it’s possible maintain a Jewish character indefinitely is probably selling dreams.

@EasterIssland I believe Trump and Netanyahu get on. In my opinion that's not the stumbling block to that deal... he is anti getting involved in Ukraine.
I may be wrong.

Stop rewriting history. The people who purged the Jews were the Nazis and European Christians. Jews and Muslims have peacefully lived side by side in the Middle East for centuries.

And how many Jews live in ME countries apart from Israel now?