Basic math and economics are beyond the capacity of Mr. Dunn. The days of Israeli dependence on the US are long over. Its GDP per capita is #18 in the world, higher than Germany's and just below Canada's: about $53-54k, according to the IMF, World Bank and the UN:
Canada Americas 53,247 2023 54,967 2022 52,112 2021
Israel Asia 53,196 2023 54,660 2022 54,111 2021
Germany Europe 52,824 2023 48,433 2022 51,073 2021
Egypt: $3770
Jordan: $4851
To see what proportionate Israeli response, which he calls excessive, would really look like, imagine a role reversal counterfactual (https://medium.com/discourse/hamas-israel-rename-relocate-and-role-reversal-counterfactuals-38f1bf87551).
It must include:
Jewish refugees’ 1988 genocidal charter demanding the destruction of the Arab state and its people,
Refugee militants launching more than 7000 rockets against the target in a single week,
Its funding and supply of weapons by a co-religionist regional superpower with nuclear ambitions,
Its media and rabbis’ constant invocation of the Torah’s defining their enemies as “the satanic sons of pigs and dogs” (https://www.memri.org/)
A realistic role reversal would include the truly proportionate response that anti-Israel protesters and politicians demand:
“Every Friday and Saturday, every rabbi in Israel would remind his congregation how important it is to kill all of the Muslims in the world, wherever they find them.
“Israeli schools would brainwash Israeli kids to die killing Muslims, for the glory of making Judaism dominant in the Middle East. Israeli TV would broadcast threats of genocide to the Palestinians, with the IDF entertainment unit singing specially-written songs in Arabic about how bloody and glorious the massacre will be. (At the same time, they’d go to the UN and accuse the Palestinians of genocide.)
“Israeli girls would be killed by their own families if they liked boys. So would Israeli boys. IDF artillery would shoot rockets into Arab towns without any military targets, with the intention of killing as many civilians as possible, several times a day, sometimes hundreds of times a day.
“The Mossad would send young Jews to blow themselves up in shopping centres, hotels, cafes, nightclubs and bus stops around the world. Israeli municipalities would name streets after the suicide bombers, and the government would pay their families a pension for life. (the P.A.'s "pay to slay" payouts)
“The proud Jewish mothers of the suicide bombers would appear on Israeli TV encouraging mothers everywhere to give up their children for the cause of killing Muslims.” (https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/what-a-proportionate-response-would-look-like/?fbclid=IwAR0tg3MsNxPZr44Hdwn3jmJy5ujPSiEm7jBatKVlBwaNyfQBENqxh-JvcHc)
This list is very incomplete. But I won’t wage a war of attrition against readers.
