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  • There was an arms embargo. They clandestinely bought modified Czechoslovakian-built Messerschmidts (which were awful) to use them against far superior Egyptian Spitfires. There were also various smaller purchases of arms from Europe, again in a clandestine manner. They would typically e.g. purchase a few hundred rifles through a Nicaraguan front firm, the ship would then conveniently "sink" somewhere after having offloaded the guns somewhere in international waters onto a ship heading for Israel. Other weapons, like tanks, were bought literally from scrapyards and repaired again. They got a few American bombers, which had been converted into civilian transport aircraft, converting them back to military spec - which resulted in prison sentences for the Americans who helped them with this.

    Generally though, due to the American- and British-enforced embargo, the dire economic situation of the new nation of Israel and the fact that they were surrounded from all sides, except for the ocean, meant that there was a shortage of everything in Israel and that they did not have enough weapons at any point during this war. They very quickly resorted to building their own small arms as a start - that's where the famous Uzi submachine gun comes from. Decades later, they would start to build their own tanks, after realizing that relying on foreign imports was inadvisable, since the political situation could change rapidly and since imported tanks weren't ideal for their requirements. In the 1980s to early '90s, they had a program for a domestic fighter jet, which however was ended due to American pressure. The plans for this likely ended up in China.

    As you can see, dumbing this down to "was supplied arms from Europe" doesn't really tell the whole story.

  • They were fighting Israel, not the entire might of Europe. In this context, they were mightier (population-wise, economically, militarily, including in terms of equipment), but they made terrible use of what they had and were fighting a people that was standing with their backs against the wall.

  • This conflict as we know it today started with the Arab nations jointly attacking the young nation of Israel. Egypt then occupied Gaza for decades, as did Jordan with the West Bank. Neither permitted the local Palestinian Arabs any influence on how they were being governed and the occupation regimes were generally authoritarian and oppressive.

    You're showing either ignorance or dishonesty by instead claiming "75 years of oppression". This conflict is far more complex than that.

    The lopsided civilian death toll primarily exists for two reasons: Israel goes to extreme lengths to protect its civilian population: Bomb shelters in nearly every home, early warning systems, missile defense systems. Palestinian leadership on the other hand openly encourages and forces as many civilians to die as possible, so that they can use them as political ammunition, both domestically and internationally, so that naive people like you repeat these numbers as if they were some gotcha that determines guilt. They are also routinely inflating death tolls and they stopped distinguishing between military and civilian deaths years ago, which further increases the numbers, as a sandal militia coming up against an experienced standing army will of course suffer disproportionately high losses in combat.

    And yes of course you can use a bomb defensively in a military context. If you know an enemy force is about to attack you and you bomb them, the site of a planned ambush or their military infrastructure instead, is that not the defensive use of a bomb?

  • Because this particular equipment isn't suitable for the battlefields of Ukraine. Gravity and guided bombs are of little use in a theater where both sides have air defenses that make the use of bombers almost impossible.

  • If you're in Europe, there's the exhibition on this topic at the Gallo-Roman Museum in Tongeren, Belgium for a few more months, after previous stops at, among other places, the Met:

    https://galloromeinsmuseum.be/en/see-and-do/antiquity-in-colour/

    At least in some cases, they have the side-by-side comparisons you're looking for (although they obviously don't have originals of the most famous statues).

    Video with more info:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ULQvS-iKNcQ

    A beautiful page on a prior exhibition, with images that allow you to switch between the reconstruction and the "white" look the statues have now after millennia or decay:

    https://buntegoetter.liebieghaus.de/en/

    In case you need an overview of future exhibitions:

    https://www.polychromyroundtable.com/exhibitions.php

    Not that the above page got the dates for the exhibition in Belgium wrong, stating that it's until July, whereas it's actually until June this year.

  • This gas was originally supposed to be exploited for the benefits of Palestinians, with the help of Egypt. Negotiations were ongoing until literally the day of the terror attack. It would have resulted in billions in revenue and potentially energy independence for Gaza. It's yet another item in a long list of things Hamas ruined for Palestinians.

    https://www.usip.org/publications/2023/08/how-gaza-marine-deal-could-benefit-palestinians-israelis-and-region

    Naturally, this article mentions none of this, which I consider deeply dishonest.