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The Jews are by far the ethnicity I have the most respect for, they punch so far above their weight class it's ridiculous.
As someone who finds HBD glaringly obviously true, I have little compunction about praising them, if only it wasn't for their propensity to embrace wokeness, at least in the US.
And Israel is the country closest to being an isekai protagonist, absolutely cut off, besieged on all fronts, yet absolutely wrecks armies a dozen times their size. The only potential threat to their hegemony would be the Arab armies embracing automation, unless they decided to train their military AI on Classic Arab Doctrine, it's far harder for them to be as hilariously incompetent.
What other nation tolerates being bombarded with rockets on a regular basis, only to swat them away like inconvenient flies? Palestine should count itself lucky they pose no real threat, because the Israelis could and should clamp down on that cankering sore, and all concerned would come out better.
They punch so far above their weight we should almost declare procreate with a Jew day a national holiday.
If I want to put a tinfoil conspiracy hat on and an alien civ was guiding our development they would 100% be a Jew. Even AI is Sam Altman and Yud. Who interesting enough both skipped college.
Was hoping someone would throw in some more history so I guess I just have to assume this story they were just sort of chilling in Eastern Europe is true.
I’m curious if Civilization (the video game) create a Jewish civ what would their special abilities be.
Jewish civ bonuses:
Chosen people - ancient era bonus for developing monotheism and great prophets
Money lender - middle ages trade bonus, discount on banks
Lie back and think of Israel - modern era fertility bonus
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The Civ devs are cowards who decided that religions as disparate as Buddhism and Islam deserve no special military or cultural modifiers in their games, so expecting benefits from Judaism would be pointless!
That said, an Israel Civ could be represented by high science and military production but lower pop growth IMO.
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I suppose except their entire shoreline from where they can always freely be supplied by the most powerful country in human history which unconditionally supports them diplomatically economically and militarily often to the detriment of its own geopolitical standing.
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Besieged on all fronts but the one that matters - the air. If Israel gets in trouble, they need only threaten to use their nukes (that curiously fly under the radar of the US-sponsored anti-proliferation treaty) and the US will airlift them as much weaponry as they need and more. No matter the cost! It doesn't matter if the Arabs then organize a devastating oil embargo that costs the West hundreds of billions in economic damage, the US will not suffer Israel to come to any harm. It doesn't matter if they poison US relations with the Arab world, if they sell weapons to China, if they spy on the US, if they create a rather interesting precedent for annexing other people's land in the sacred post-WW2 rules-based international order... They get immense military aid, generous subsidies for their own military industry and all the US's best toys.
Your isekai protagonist metaphor is spot on. I'll add another trope - the strongest warrior in the world inexplicably falls in love with the MC and will stick with him, no matter what wacky and expensive disasters he embarks upon, she'll bail him out.
I can't think of an isekai series that does this.
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It literally happened: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Nickel_Grass
That the Israelis won a couple of battles by the time the C-5s started landing doesn't make the aid useless, the extra aircraft and supplies made it much easier for them to counterattack. One can be much more aggressive when your losses are sure to be replenished.
The Arab war goal was to retake the Golan Heights and Sinai peninsula which they lost when Israel attacked them in 1967. The US persuaded Israel to give up Sinai and bribed Egypt extensively to accept the deal, to sign a peace treaty with Israel. Partly this was due to Soviet pressure on the other side. Golan remains in Israeli hands. The US foreign aid budget to Egypt increased enormously (as it did when other Arab states recognized Israel and signed peace treaties). All the generosity here is flowing from the US to Israel, by bribing its enemies to stand down and persuading the Israeli govt not to bite off more than they can chew.
It's the worst deal in the world. The US got massive enmity from the Arabs, in exchange for forever paying bribes to Egypt, Lebanon and so on so they wouldn't be quite so angry with Israel. And endless military aid to Israel, so they can bomb and invade their neighbours whenever they like.
If the US simply stopped meddling in the Middle East, stopped reflexively prostrating before Israel (the Iraq War was heavily motivated by the perceived need to destroy Israel's enemies), the US would be a lot better off. On the pure logic of national interests, the US should favoured the Arabs (who are numerous and have oil) over the Israelis who are few and lack oil.
This has me imagining a potential counterfactual world, though, one in which Israel sided with the Soviets (which I think they threatened to do in reality), and today exists as a stubborn and nigh-impossible-to-dislodge pariah state with ties to America's modern enemies (a la North Korea), and internet pundits like us ceaselessly bemoan the state of America's Arab allies, all of whom can't fight a war to literally save their lives (a la the Republic of China and the Republic of Vietnam), who we expect will get blown away first the second WWIII starts, and who keep spitting in our faces despite our supposed alliance because we're an insufficiently-pious nation.
Interesting scenario. Would they do so well though? Where would Israel even get oil for their military? North Korea has China and Cuba actually has a surprising amount of oil.
I think Israel would instantly disintegrate the moment it loses its superpower sponsor. North Korea and Cuba could endure losing Soviet subsidies because they were pretty homogenous. How could Israel survive if its fuel and trade were suddenly cut off? The Palestinians and their friends in the CIA would see about the end of the Tel Aviv Regime. Of course, if they had nukes it would be different. Then again, without US support, they probably wouldn't have nukes.
But just think about the gains to be had from the Arabs! Cheap, secure oil supplies. Saddam and Syria would be on our side, no problems there. Osama Bin Laden wouldn't be angry with us. Negligible Islamic terrorism. Maybe we'd get an Israeli terror group to substitute for Al-Qaeda, which could be alarming, especially if Israel has nukes.
Wasn't this the British?
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It's been tried before though, hasn't it? Twice, in fact. And both times Israel was able to repulse massive armies before the U.S. got involved. In fact, the U.S. had to intervene because Israel was TOO successful.
Raw numbers don't mean that much in the face of massive organizational, technological, and motivational superiority.
I suppose you could theoretically zerg rush Israel with like 1 million poorly trained soldiers and win. I don't think that's possible right now absent a major casus belli to motivate the troops.
Didn't that get tried, and fail... in less than a week... while Israeli equipment wasn't any better than their opponent's?
Looks like you are right. I just checked Wikipedia and the invaders did have nearly 1 million troops in 1973 and over 500,000 in 1967.
Need more zerglings then. Maybe 2 million would suffice?
I'm not sure that "more manpower" would solve the issue with Arab militaries. A better cohesive structure might have allowed Egyptian and Jordanian military forces to hold together long enough to bring their numbers to bear, but holding together long enough to use superior numbers is a bar that Israel's main historical rivals show an incapacity to meet.
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I believe this sentiment is actually very common with online Hindu nationalist types. My best guess is that they see Israel as a country of hyper-competent Brahmins (without the 1.5 billion riffraff bringing them down) and associate its enemies of "Muslim hordes" with Pakistan.
Lmao, if you think that I'm an "online Hindu nationalist type", you literally couldn't be further off the mark (I do accept that I'm technically online).
I absolutely despise Hindutva, neither am I a Hindu, nor am I a Brahmin for the matter.
I grudgingly concede that Brahmins are likely smarter than the typical Indian, at least on the basis of their over-representation in prestige fields, but that's more of an outcome of being a stickler for intellectual honesty than some weird superiority fetish.
Turns out, people can and do hold idiosyncratic views if they try and let themselves be guided where the evidence leads..
But don't let me keep you from armchair psychoanalysis, it's at least entertaining if nothing else.
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I'm about as sincere as it gets. Jews are based.
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