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Iron Beam: Israel's first operational anti drone laser system

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Re: Iron Beam: Israel's first operational anti drone laser system

#281
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is designed to save people.

Sure, until someone says "hey can we stick this on a truck and use it against cars?" "Hey can we stick this on the belly of a plane and use it on a building?" "Hey what happens if we do a flash of this at protestors?"

Those kinds of tests have been done with lasers already.

This is a defensive application of lasers, like CIWS is a defensive application of guns.

Re: Iron Beam: Israel's first operational anti drone laser system

#282
post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And Putin gives a nuke to Iranians then it's game over since Iranians don't care about MAD doctrine. Anyways the risk of the tech falling into Russia's hands is too high. Ukrainians have the smarts to develop it themselves now that it is proven as a viable tech.

iran has a religious rule against making nukes, to the same extent that it has religious decrees calling for an end to israel. iranians arent gonna nuke anyone without first toppling their religious government

Iran has an active nuclear weapons program which the Israelis keep sabotaging.

Re: Iron Beam: Israel's first operational anti drone laser system

#283

Personally I think that defensive technology like this is fantastic. It means that innocent citizens will be protected from constant bombardment or thread of bombardment by cheap mass produced rockets or drones. Israeli civilians have faced bombardment by tens of thousands of rockets from Gaza for the last 20 years [1]. Outside the Middle East there's many areas threatened by combatants with similar cheap missiles. P…

Data says it’s the Palestinians that need defenses, not the ones doing 95% of the killing. https://www.ochaopt.org/data/casualties

Life is not fair.

Re: Iron Beam: Israel's first operational anti drone laser system

#284
post #64

A lot of comments decrying new weapons tech, but I think drone defense tech is particularly critical right now and going to save a lot of lives. Put another way, I don't think we would be against new clothing that made bullets less effective, even if it remains terrible that such clothing is needed. Especially as AI becomes better and cheaper and suicide drones become more nimble and autonomous. If you have seen any…

This will be vital tech after China swarms Taiwan with a massive drone invasion.

Re: Iron Beam: Israel's first operational anti drone laser system

#285
post #106
post #86

Someone should give people in Gaza or the West Bank or Lebanon the same tech.

Gaza (Hamas), the West Bank (Fatah), and Lebanon (Hezbollah) are the reason this technology is needed in the first place: violent religious fundamentalists firing cheap rockets at Jewish cities because of religious hatred. Over 16,000 rocket attacks on Israel last year alone. Thanks to the Iron Dome technology, nearly 90% of such attacks were intercepted, saving thousands of lives. This new Iron Beam technology is mo…

> violent religious fundamentalists firing ... cities because of religious hatred

Some tend to be more introspective:

  Shahak's Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel picked up on the theme in explaining its pervasive, destructive influence in Israeli politics, the military and society. He noted that substituting German or Aryan for Jewish and non-Jews for Jews makes it easy to see how a superiority doctrine made an earlier genocide possible and is letting another happen now. Shahak called all forms of bigotry morally reprehensible and said: "Any form of racism, discrimination and xenophobia becomes more potent and politically influential if it is taken for granted by the society which indulges in it." For Israeli Jews, he believed, "The support of democracy and human rights is... meaningless or even harmful and deceitful when it does not begin with self-critique and with support of human rights when they are violated by one's own group. Any support of human rights for non-Jews whose rights are being violated by the 'Jewish state' is as deceitful as the support of human rights by a Stalinist..."

  Kook was Israel's first chief rabbi. In his honour, and to continue his teachings, the extremist Merkaz Harav (the Rabbi's Centre) was founded in 1924 as a yeshiva or fundamentalist religious college. It teaches that, "non-Jews living under Jewish law in Eretz Yisrael (the Land of Israel) must either be enslaved as water carriers and wood hewers, or banished, or exterminated."

  Chief military rabbi, Brigadier General Avichai Rontzki, called Operation Cast Lead a "religious war" in which it was "immoral" to show mercy to an enemy of "murderers". Many others feel the same way, prominently among them graduates of Hesder Yeshivat schools that combine extremist religious indoctrination with military service to defend the Jewish state.

  Others in Israel teach the extremist notion that the 10 Commandments don't apply to non-Jews. So killing them in defending the homeland is acceptable, and according to Rabbi Dov Lior, chairman of the Jewish Rabbinic Council: "There is no such thing as enemy civilians in war time. The law of our Torah is to have mercy on our soldiers and to save them... A thousand non-Jewish lives are not worth a Jew's fingernail."

  In June 2009, US Hasidic Rabbi Manis Friedman voiced a similar sentiment in calling on Israel to kill Palestinian "men, women and children". "I don't believe in Western morality, ie don't kill civilians or children, don't destroy holy sites, don't fight during the holiday seasons, don't bomb cemeteries, and don't shoot until they shoot first because it is immoral. The only way to fight a moral war is the Jewish way: destroy their holy sites. Kill men, women and children (and cattle)."

  ...

  Though a minority, Israel's religious community wields considerable influence politically, in the military and society overall.

  ...

   How the future balance of power shifts from one side to the other will greatly influence the makeup of future Israeli governments and determine whether peaceful co- existence can replace over six decades of conflict and repression. So far it hasn't, and nothing suggests it will any time soon; not while extremist Zionists run the government, serve prominently in the Israeli army, and -- according to critics -- are gaining more power incrementally. 
I mean... let's not throw stones from an equally spectacular glass house.

Re: Iron Beam: Israel's first operational anti drone laser system

#286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Each Iron Dome interception cost many times more than the cost of the rockets. This will make it cheaper for other poorer nations to afford and operate.

Are you factoring in the cost in human lives?

Human lives are pretty cheap all things considered.

Re: Iron Beam: Israel's first operational anti drone laser system

#287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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:…

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/wor…

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...

Re: Iron Beam: Israel's first operational anti drone laser system

#288
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is designed to save people.

Sure, until someone says "hey can we stick this on a truck and use it against cars?" "Hey can we stick this on the belly of a plane and use it on a building?" "Hey what happens if we do a flash of this at protestors?"

We already have very cheap and effective ways to kill people.

Not so much when it comes to drone swarms.

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