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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

#451

Post by blitzar »

XorNot wrote: post #381
richardwhiuk wrote: post #379

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not clear that’s true. States which don’t fear being attacked are more likely to attack other states

Frankly where's the evidence of this? My country of Australia has no fear of being attacked, yet we haven't launched an endeavor of conquest of South East Asia.' Real life doesn't break down into simple narratives. The facts in the Middle East are that post-October 7 Israel aggressively bombarded Gaza at a scale and intensity where it did not previously, and a substantial chunk of the population supported that. In pa…

> My country of Australia has no fear of being attacked

You should watch some Sky News Australia; at least once a week there is a special report on how to prepare for China's invasion - which is never more than two weeks away.

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

#452

Post by LightBug1 »

jdiez17 wrote: post #438
LightBug1 wrote: post #413

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Back when decent civilization was a thing, there were rules of engagement, conduct, the pursuit of security, and strategic goals which didn't include active genocide of civilians. Now, granted, we've witnessed horrible things in wars that don't match up to order and clarity of my previous sentence. But there were end goals that made sense. Sorry, genocide, apartheid and the establishment of a religious-fascist state…

> Back when decent civilization was a thing, there were rules of engagement, conduct, the pursuit of security, and strategic goals which didn't include active genocide of civilians. What period of human history are you referring to exactly?

[flagged]

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

#453

Post by FunnyUsername »

MarkusWandel wrote: post #389

What I don't get about these laser defense systems: Doesn't the attacker just have to attack on a foggy day?

It's absolutely an issue, although this is outside the visible spectrum and degradation may be a bit less severe compared to visible light.

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

#454

Post by conception »

colordrops wrote: post #263
conception wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not if revealing success also reveals methodology and “trade” secrets.

What could these secrets be other than a completely illegal comprehensive web of domestic spy apparatus.

“We have a mole in X network that gave us details about the attack.” Would be the most obvious.

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

#455

Post by wat10000 »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #346
belorn wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you want society to be more vulnerable to military action, then the biggest innovation is health care. Improved health care is what allowed nations to create and maintain larger military forces. Through out history, disease and malnourished caused more death by a large margin than actually violence in combat, and many war campaign stopped suddenly because one or both sides became unable to continue.

> Improved health care is what allowed nations to create and maintain larger military forces Isn’t it the other way? With a lot of medicine’s modern advances being rooted in combat medicine?

I think they mean communicable diseases, not combat injuries. For example, around 2/3rds of the military deaths in the American civil war were from disease, not combat. I don’t think much of the medical advances that prevent that came from combat medicine.

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

#456

Post by recroad »

hersko wrote: post #430
recroad wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Country A attacks vastly more powerful neighbor. They have no defensive infrastructure (for civilians), no plans for minimizing civilian deaths, no hope of actually winning the war they started. There strategy is to fight in a dense urban environment among their own civilians while firing thousands of unguided rockets at their enemy, knowing the retaliation is going to be horrific with no way for them to stop it (oth…

Country A is resisting a 75 year violent occupation and apartheid (see stats posted earlier) and currently suffering genocide. Anyone denying that is no different than anyone denying the holocaust - equally vile and reprehensible. But everyone somehow seems to conveniently forget that part. Don't take my word for it, list of apartheid and genocide reports below.

The reason this doesn't make the discourse, even on communities like Hacker News which are supposed to be "smart", is because of decades of the West being brainwashed to the point where Islamophobia is normalized and ubiquitous.

Genocide accusations:

- Amnesty International - https://zeteo.com/p/amnesty-concludes-israel-genocide-gaza

- Human Rights Watch - https://www.hrw.org/news/2024/12/19/israels-crime-exterminat...

- Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders) - https://msf.org.uk/issues/gaza-genocide

- University Network for Human Rights - https://www.humanrightsnetwork.org/projects/genocide-in-gaza

- B'Tselem - https://zeteo.com/p/israeli-human-rights-group-says-israel

- Al-Haq - https://www.alhaq.org/publications/25781.html

- Palestinian Centre for Human Rights - https://pchrgaza.org/category/genocide-against-gaza/

- Physicians for Human Rights - Israel

- United Nations Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied - Palestinian Territory - https://zeteo.com/p/united-nations-un-gaza-genocide-israel

- The International Association of Genocide Scholars - https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/sep/01/israel-committ...

Apartheid accusations:

- Amnesty International - https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2022/03/israel-opt-is...

- Human Rights Watch - https://www.hrw.org/report/2021/04/27/threshold-crossed/isra...

- B'Tselem - https://www.btselem.org/publications/fulltext/202101_this_is...

- Al-Haq - https://www.alhaq.org/advocacy/16183.html

- Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) - https://www.alhaq.org/advocacy/16183.html

- Al Mezan Centre for Human Rights - https://www.alhaq.org/advocacy/19761.html

- Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association - https://www.alhaq.org/advocacy/20931.html

- UN Special Rapporteur Michael Lynk - https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2022/03/israels-55-y...

- UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) - https://www.alhaq.org/advocacy/16324.html

- Human Sciences Research Council of South Africa - https://www.alhaq.org/advocacy/7207.html

- International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) - Referenced in multiple coalition statements

- BADIL Resource Center - https://badil.org/press-releases/592.html

- Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies (CIHRS) - https://www.alhaq.org/advocacy/17012.html

- Palestinian Coalition of 8 Organizations - https://www.alhaq.org/advocacy/20931.html

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

#457

Post by whatshisface »

coryrc wrote: post #204
whatshisface wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue with that type of reasoning is that if you swapped the parties the sentences would be the same. "Palestine removed generations of settlements from Israel, but was forced to attack because Israel wanted to wipe them out." You need to think in terms of principles that can apply equally to everybody.

There are 2 million muslims living in Israel. There are zero Jews in Gaza -- not even just living ones, they had to remove the long-buried dead ones too.

The millions being starved purposely are for all practical purposes (and by the territorial recognition of several countries if that means anything...) also living in Israel. More to the point, I am not sure what that means for the discussion: I am sure I'd have evacuated my own citizens too before doing this.

The least important point is technical, which is that I said Palestine lost many homes to Israel over the years, not that every (just many) Palestinian lost their home. For what it's worth to the symmetry argument there were Jews happily living in Palestine before 1900, but let's not get distracted by the question of how good my opinion is when there's an obvious wrong anyone can agree with staring straight at everybody.

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

#458

Post by Alex_L_Wood »

nielsbot wrote: post #259
yonixw wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

This is hasbara. You need to learn more about Israeli history. Hamas was elected with the support of Netanyahu et al. And 50% of the people in Gaza weren’t even alive when Hamas was elected. (However many of them remain. The death toll after Oct 7 will probably be around 500,000 dead) Israel has never been interested in a peace deal. It is a settler colonialist project in the finest traditions of such with the aim of…

Ignoring any constructive responses as "hasbara" is something that is actively harmful to any potential peaceful resolution of the conflict.

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

#459

Post by whatshisface »

solatic wrote: post #251
whatshisface wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they both have a right to kill each other, does the other really have a right to defense? Making it complicated introduces legalistic flaws and distracts everyone from actually fixing it by doing something simple, like tying sanctions to murders of civillians.

> can the right to kill coexist with the victim's right to defense? Yes it can, and it's ludicrous to suggest otherwise. Russia believes it has the natural right to reclaim what it considers to be Russian territory. Ukraine believes it has the right to be free. So everyone should just put down their weapons and come to an agreement based on these rights? The fallacy at the heart of your argument is that there is some…

>The US bombing "drug" boats in the Caribbean, are those civilians?

Yes.

>How far should sanctions go? Sanction enemy banks (layer 1)? Sanction citizens of neutral countries who do business with the enemy country (layer 2)? Sanction citizens of neutral countries who do business with other citizens who do business with the enemy country (layer 3)?

You're doing a great job of writing my policy! To be fair and to show commitment without doing too much harm it should be gradually phased in. The reason it's simple is that Israel does not really need to murder all of those individuals, and there is even an internal political option to not do it, so a firm "no" from everyone else would be sufficient. I doubt the sanctions would ever be implemented. I'm sorry if this sounds glib but there is no honest way to hedge it.

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

#460

Post by ponector »

WJW wrote: post #314
throw-12-16 wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Human lives are pretty cheap all things considered.

I was bored so I did the math and you are not correct. Even if you don't care about the people themselves, a normal citizen in an industrialized society like Israel has about 40 years of working life. Let's assume for simplicity that some rockets would hit children but others would hit retired people, on average hitting people when they're halfway through their career and would have 20 years of productive work left.…

One life can cost as much as you calculated. However, if the attack will kill an unproductive (elderly, disabled or other) person then it could be a net gain instead of loss for the economy.
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