Israeli prime minister says country can ‘stand alone’ and cites the ‘heroism and arms embargo’ of the 1948 Arab-Israeli war

Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed that Israel will stand alone and “fight with our fingernails” in defiance of US threats to further restrict arms deliveries if Israeli forces proceeded with an offensive on the southern Gazan city of Rafah.

Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, was speaking on Thursday after Israeli and Hamas delegations left the ceasefire negotiations in Cairo.

It was unclear whether the talks had broken down or simply paused, but the failure to reach an agreement on this week’s round of meetings raised apprehension of an imminent Israeli attack on Rafah.

Netanyahu appeared to shrug off a public warning from the US president, Joe Biden, the previous night that if the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) launched a major offensive on the city the US would not provide bombs and artillery shells to support the operation.

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  • paddirn@lemmy.worldEnglish
    31·
    7 months ago

    Israel has already been preparing for this eventuality for years. They’re not as dependent on US aid as one might think. They had started working towards reducing their dependence on US military aid specifically because of US presidents trying to set milquetoast restrictions like, “Please stop committing war crimes so openly.” And our aid makes up much less of their GDP (though still something like $3+ billion/year). Likely they’ll just take their business elsewhere to countries more willing to ignore war crimes. We should still stop providing aid to them though, they’re a belligerent country and committing war crimes & genocide.

    • Aqarius@lemmy.worldEnglish
      51·
      7 months ago

      I kinda wanna see Israel start weapons development with China. Just to see people lose their shit.

    • SkyezOpen@lemmy.worldEnglish
      2·
      7 months ago

      take their business elsewhere to countries more willing to ignore war crimes.

      Like where? The US is basically the only country backing Israel right now, in spite of every other western country. I doubt Russia or China will jump at the opportunity, and pretty much all their middle eastern neighbors have “death to Israel” in their constitution.