During the 1980s-90s, Israel scrapped the IAI Lavi program and transferred it's IP to the Deng administration [0][1]. This was the precursor of the J-XX program which spawned the J-10, JF-17, and J-20. This continued until 2005 [2].
Saudi Arabia did the same thing in the 1980s as well, working with the PRC on the Dongfeng program and helping formalize the Pakistan-China relationship [3].
Even Israel's nuclear, jet fighter, and submarine program was due to a similar technology transfer Gaullist France did in the 1950s-60s [4] in order to retain strategic autonomy against the US and an ally to protect it's access to the Suez Canal in what became the Suez Crisis [5].
On the other hand, the US successfully prevented similar attempts by South Korea and Taiwan in the 1970s-80s.
The Cold War was a crazy time.
Edit: can't reply
> we did not give Saudi Arabia $317.9 billion despite you saying that they "did the same thing"
We turned a blind eye to Saudi Arabia financially supporting Pakistan's nuclear program in the 1981 [6] as well as stopped India from striking Pakistan in 1981 [7]. This was what has been the core of Saudi Arabia and Pakistan's mutual defense agreement for decades [3].
We could have stopped Saudi and Pakistan like we stopped Taiwan back then [8], but we didn't.
> the Zionist colony
Not a fan of that framing.
There was no reason for Iraqis to commit the Farhud, Imam Yahyi mandating all Yemeni Jews either convert to Islam or leave Yemen, Morroccans to commit the Oujda and Jerada riots, Libyans to commit the Tripolitania pogrom, and other instances in the Arab world that forced millions of Mizrahis to uproot and move to Israel in the 1940s. Israel's population has been heavily Mizrahi since those exoduses.
Similarly, Ashkenazim and Sephardim from Central and Eastern Europe and the Balkans wouldn't have left for Israel in the 1930s-40s if those states didn't collaborate in the HOLOCAUST.
There was a chance for normalization in the 2000s - especially under Shimon Peres - but the rise of Hamas ended that.
[0] - https://www.nytimes.com/1993/10/12/world/israel-selling-chin...
[1] - https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1994-12-28-mn-13774-...
[2] - https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/research_reports/...
[3] - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-24823846
[4] - https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/DOC_0000271219.pdf
[5] - https://2001-2009.state.gov/r/pa/ho/time/lw/97179.htm
[6] - https://www.upi.com/Archives/1981/01/18/Saudis-reportedly-wi...
[7] - https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/0005403744
[8] - https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/nuclear-vault/2019-0...
You mean in the 90s, but the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin ended that, no? The Likud called for his death.
And the Hamas rise has the same roots of the IRGC. Marxists against religious fundamentalists during elections, of course the US support and fund the religious fundamentalists (through Irak for one, through Israel for the other), and 10 years later everybody's surprised when fundamentalists are crazy and attack for no reason.
That does not count the money we've spent fighting their wars. We could have cut that off and sanctioned them at any time if they worked against our interests. Israel's strategy has been to compromise US leadership to stop this from happening, and until recently it was successful at that.
Sure, but complaining about downvotes is against the guidelines, and @replies are not a way to get moderator attention. The way to get moderator attention (including asking for flags to be reviewed) is to email hn@ycombinator.com.
Repeatedly posting the same sentence as a way of protesting or attracting attention is poor conduct in a community like this, and makes it harder for moderators to help you.
They release the submunitions at much higher altitudes than they were intended so they spread across a much larger area and thus ineffective at hitting anything other than an urban target.
But on the plus side for the Iranians they separate outside of the interception envelope of even the exo atmospheric interceptors Israel has so they actually get through even if each sub munition is only a nuance at best.
Estimated around 4 million of them against south Lebanon:
https://imeu.org/resources/key-issues/quick-facts-israels-il...
https://www.hrw.org/report/2008/02/16/flooding-south-lebanon...
The map of countries which sign the convention against landmines is extremely obvious in that context.
Iran signed the human rights treaties ... and openly executes gays and minors. They boast about this publicly.
No such country exists. So long as enemies are likely to put boots, wheels, or tracks on the ground in your country, landmines are extremely useful, extremely cheap, and extremely effective.
Doubly so, since they understood themselves to be backed up by a non-signatory (the US).
https://www.jpost.com/defense-and-tech/article-889435
Iran is actually attacking their former close friends at the gulf uninvolved civilian population centers more often than it attacks Israel
EDIT: fixed to 92%
The logic seems very straight forward imho. Attack the US army bases and pester the nations that allows those bases in hopes that they might ask the us to get bend.
If only they attacked the American bases as opposed to also attacking civilian infrastructure such as oil facilities and residential neighborhoods
If only they had skipped gulf countries who had pushed the US not to strike and refused to let the US use their bases to attack Iran (all of them)
If only they hadn't attacked countries without any bases such as Azerbaijan
Then I think your arguments would have had more merit
Next time all the gulf countries will know: get America and everyone else to launch attacks against Iran from your soil. Make sure to participate. Why? Iran will attack everyone regardless of alliances, who attacks, whether anyone attacks at all, what bases exist, whether or not they participate, or whether they avoid hostilities. So obviously, it's better to be part of the hostilities against Iran, to have an army on your soil that will protect at least some of your territory.
You probably meant Azerbaijan, which is the only country without US assets that Iran attacked (once, then apologised, and explained that the losses in the military leadership created special issues with the military orders, which, fair).
What US/Israel assets are in Afghanistan?
> Just today the US told all US citizens to leave Iraq.
Isn't that pretty standard practice when there's a war on?
Yeah, that's because about the Taliban took it over about 5 minutes after the US left Afghanistan a few years ago. It was a complete mess.
So you really can’t say with that level of confidence if they’ve hit those.
Previously I had seen 95% somewhere else but cannot find the link, but that's close enough.
The reason why this is credible is Iran is limited by its amount of launchers, and Israel is very effective at destroying these. With complete air superiority and drones flying over, it's very easy to spot the heat signature for a launcher.
Add to that the launchers that were effectively buried at the start of the war when the openings to Iran's underground missile storage facilities were bombed.
https://understandingwar.org/research/middle-east/iran-updat...
Iran’s fewer launches are now hitting their targets more.
This can be seen in much less overall damage than the 12 day war or the death count which is lower
https://www.skynews.com.au/world-news/global-affairs/iranian...
In any case, you are arguing something else. It is a fact that the number of ballistic missiles Iran is capable of launching had fallen sharply, this is very easy to see by the reduction of alarms in Israel, which is served by an open API. You are arguing whether missiles ever hit.
Because Iran ability to launch had fallen sharply, less Israeli citizens are hurt and less interceptors are needed. This is also progressive, as the days pass, Iran loses more and more launchers and is less capable of launching more missiles. Therefore even in the unlikely event of an Israeli interceptor crisis, the situation is rather favorable to Israel
Maybe it's just me, but if I were in such a suboptimal defensive materiel position, I would try diplomacy first. In fact, I would make it my mission to be the world recognized leader in diplomacy.
Such a nice thought. I wonder why they didn't do it? They must just be a bad, warmongering people. Oh wait, almost forgot...
> Iran and Israel have maintained no diplomatic relations since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, and their relationship has been characterized by hostility ever since. Originally, relations were relatively cordial during the first three decades of Israeli independence, and saw close partnership between the two countries. However, following the revolution, Iran adopted the elimination of Israel as a Jewish state as a core component of its foreign policy.[1] The Iranian government refuses to recognize Israel’s legitimacy as a state, calling for its destruction. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran%E2%80%93Israel_relations)
That's what your logic sounds like
So it seems strange to use this as an argument to defend Iran. Bad faith, even.
As for diplomacy: Iran signs treaties ... then just refuses to uphold them. For example, Iran signed, then pretty openly violated it's nuclear non-proliferation treaty obligations [2], same with the famous nuclear deal.
But, even where it comes to pretty basic things: Iran signed the human rights treaties, including the Geneva convention, and hangs gays and minors as a matter of course (according to amnesty #1 worldwide with hundreds of minors executed, and actually increasing the rate over time), attacks religious minorities, women, the government has a side business in kidnapping foreignors ...
Or other treaties. Iran signed freedom of navigation treaties, and has for decades violated them. Hell, Iran violates the international telecommunications union treaty.
The problem: Iran cannot be negotiated with, for the simple reason that they do not respect deals they make. There's no point in negotiating since their behavior does not change when they make deals. They make promises, and ignore them. They sign treaties, and boast openly about violating them.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iranian_diplomat_terror_plot_t...
[2] https://www.iaea.org/sites/default/files/25/06/gov2025-38.pd...
Its hard to negotiate with Iran when Israel keeps killing their negotiators.
I think we are fast approaching an era where weapons of mass destruction, by way of cheap killbot swarms, are trivially accessible to any government. Without radical diplomacy, I fear the entire Middle East -- Israel included -- is on a path to annihilation.
The best way to prevent terrorism is to not give people reasons to want you dead.
Look at all the ethnic conflicts in the world. Like the troubles in Ireland. Did that stop because one side threw more bombs? No, it stopped because both sides agreed to talk.
Europe attacked and even persecuted the Germans (with reason) for WW2. Tens of millions of victims. Neither side wants the other dead. US and Japan? Same. Most of these countries are allies.
Israel has never even had much business with Indonesia, and only little with India. Yet a large number of Indonesians want to kill all Jews (not just Israeli) and Indians largely support Israel, even in war. Or take Lebanese. Despite Israel attacking them many times and giving them plenty of "reasons to want them dead", if you talk to actual Lebanese, most population groups (in fact the ones that suffered the most) want normal relations with Israel. It seems they blame some other party, even for the deaths directly at the hands of Israel ...
So, none of these situations fit your theory. It's very obvious that the issues Israel has with a great many countries have nothing to do with "giving them reasons to want you dead". By contrast, there are countries who've given each other far better reasons to hate ... and yet don't want each other dead.
In fact, I have trouble finding an example of nations that want to attack each other because of such a historical situation. Hell, the history of China and Japan for the last millenium is one of each nation taking turns conquering and terrorizing the other and yet ... the only fear Japanese and Chinese have is the communist party suddenly deciding to conquer some country and attack, which every Japanese and Chinese person is secretly 100% certain will be a total disaster, for China as a whole AND for them personally.
And that gives the real reason behind conflicts: one party thinks they can just take what they want, and attacks, usually for ideological reasons. Sometimes they're right, mostly they're wrong.
I don't see many common elements with the situation in Gaza (and now Iran). A policy of "mowing the grass" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mowing_the_grass) will never lead to stability or warm and fuzzy feelings towards Israel.
Live by the sword, die by the sword. Old advice that continues to ring true.
Instead, we frequently see it from dictators with a delusion of grandeur.
You DO realize how absurd this is. Iran isn't exactly subtle about its hatred for Israel and desire to destroy it and funding of the "Axis of Resistance".
> Iran and Israel have maintained no diplomatic relations since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, and their relationship has been characterized by hostility ever since.
And their policy of overlooking violence against the previous inhabitants. Genocide slow burn.
So I don’t know what good any diplomacy could have been in that context.