Israel/Palestine

Last edited Sat Oct 21, 2023, 08:26 AM - Edit history (1)

The latest data available is for 2022:

Military expenditure as a share of GDP for Israel: 4.5%
https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/MS.MIL.XPND.GD.ZS?locations=IL
Military expenditure as a share of GDP for USA: 3.5%
https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/MS.MIL.XPND.GD.ZS?locations=US

I must disappoint you with the Gaza stats, though: they are not available (https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/MS.MIL.XPND.GD.ZS?locations=PS ), likely because Hamas doesn't want to embarrass itself with advertising its obscene military spending relative to its non-military spending. But it doesn't take a rocket surgeon to figure out that for the price of the 5000 missiles Hamas claims it fired at Israel last Saturday alone, Hamas could have purchased quite a few solar powered water desalination plants to last a decade or three, and for the cost of the estimated 200 miles of reinforced concrete tunnels under Gaza it is quite possible to fund a public transportation system for all of Gaza that will, assuming the revenues will not be diverted to provide luxury housing for Hamas leaders in Qatar, pay for itself. And if you choose to take from Peter (or the Gazans) to pay Paul (or Hamas), your lose all credibility when you claim to rule in the name and for the benefit of the Gaza Palestinians.

I don't want to go into insulting your intelligence in pointing out that I am not proposing a quality of life comparison between Palestinians and Israelis (oh damn, I just did. My apologies). Nevertheless, I am confident that you know full well the difference between this and comparing military spending relative to civilian spending between the two, and that deflecting into matters of socio-economic and political power imbalances between the two, etc., etc., etc., was purely unintentional and an innocent oversight on your part. The same goes for your proposition that there is no such land as Hamas. Of course there is not, but you must be aware that Hamas is in control of the land called Gaza. And you must know that Israel doesn't claim Gaza for itself. And if you want to stick to the apocryphal pro-Palestinian narrative, you shouldn't be calling Gaza their ancestral land. Supposedly, 80% of the Palestinian ancestors of current Gaza residents migrated there after 1949, after Egypt annexed the territory for itself.

Of course, you are free to choose any storytelling style you want in idle conversation, but keep in mind that the opinions expressed by you are yours and yours alone. Likewise, I will reserve the same privilege for myself.