Yves here. The text of a tweet from Thomas Keith (if you have a Twitter account, please follow him!) summarizes estimates of the many substantial hard dollar costs Israel incurred in its Iran misadventure, also with economic losses that have a much longer tail, such as the loss of venture capital, since no investor with an operating brain cell wants to operate out of a conflict zone. As most readers know, a significant majority of experts and other commentators see the cessation of hostilities as temporary and expect more kinetic action, as in more destruction.
We said at the outset that Israel has a glass jaw. It’s never been on the receiving end of the punishment it has been casually handing out for decades. As Alastair Crooke said after the October 7 attack, the raison d’etre for Israel was to be a safe haven for Jews. That belief was damaged then and not it has been smashed to bits.
Official tallies seem modest compared to the Keith’s list:
Israel estimates indicate that the cost may rise to $20 billion, with damage affecting the economy, society, and strategic infrastructure.
The Compensation Fund of the Israeli Tax Authority stated that it had received around 39,000 claims for direct material damage resulting…
— Elijah J. Magnier 🇪🇺 (@ejmalrai) June 26, 2025
Two days earlier, the Times of Israel estimated the damage at a paltry $1.5 billion, only twice the level of damage inflicted in the Hamas attacks. For reference, Israel’s GDP is $513 billion.
Note that even though the list below is extensive and specific, there are further costs it omits, in part because they can’t yet be reasonably estimated:
1. The severe economic downdraft as more Israelis flee if and when the country is opened up again, particularly the high-skilled ones on whom the economy depends. We covered that vulnerability at length in a June 2024 post, Israel Economy Bleeding Out as Damage Compounds. Note in particular that it cited an Israeli economist who says the country depends on a mere 300,000 professionals1
2. The loss of more IDF soldiers, which Israel has yet to admit to.
3. The cost of the damage to ports, which goes beyond the cost of repairing infrastructure to the loss of shipments, which could be protracted if insurers are leery
4. The odds that the BDS movement will gain more steam as Israel kept up its genocide even during the Iran conflict. From Aljazeera:
Since Israel began attacking Iran on June 13, global attention on the plight of Palestinians in the occupied territory has faded from the headlines.
But Israel has continued to attack Palestinians in Gaza, while conducting deadly raids in the West Bank…
“Israel is using the diverted attention away from Gaza to continue to carry out atrocious crimes against starving civilians,” said Omar Rahman, an expert on Israel and Palestine for the Middle East Council on Global Affairs think tank.
“We have also seen a lot of military and settler activity in the West Bank in recent days,” he told Al Jazeera.
Israel’s violence against helpless Palestinians at the GHF site on Tuesday resulted in the highest single death toll at any GHF site since the controversial organisation began operations last month. It has been lambasted for what opponents have called the militarisation of humanitarian aid relief.
Readers can add to this and Thomas Keith’s list; full text below the embed:
Israel entered the 12-day exchange convinced it could absorb costs; the ledger now shows a nation bleeding cash, talent, and confidence. Direct military outlays hit $5 B in the first week, then ballooned to $725 M every 24 hours, $593 M on offensive strikes that failed to silence…
— Thomas Keith (@iwasnevrhere_) June 25, 2025
Israel entered the 12-day exchange convinced it could absorb costs; the ledger now shows a nation bleeding cash, talent, and confidence. Direct military outlays hit $5 B in the first week, then ballooned to $725 M every 24 hours, $593 M on offensive strikes that failed to silence Iran, $132 M on frantic mobilisation and missile intercepts that still let 400 warheads through. Iron Dome batteries alone inhaled $10 M to $200 M per day while Iranian salvos sailed past them and erased $1.47 B in civilian property, triggering 38 700 damage claims, 11 000 evacuations, and 30 condemned high-rise skeletons across Tel Aviv’s financial spine.
The Weizmann Institute, Israel’s prestige export, lies in shards, 45 labs gone and $500 M in biomedical IP incinerated, pulling decades of grant pipelines and pharma partnerships off the table overnight. Intel’s Kiryat Gat fabs froze mid-wafer, choking a supply chain that feeds 64 % of Israel’s exports and 1/5 of its GDP; the high-tech sector now runs on skeleton crews because 300 000 reservists were yanked from R&D floors and data centers to guard empty runways at Tel Nof. Commercial flights halted twice at Ben Gurion, insurers jacked premiums, and foreign airlines rerouted around a country that once sold itself as the region’s safe hub.
Capital is already in flight. More than 80 000 Israelis emigrated in 2024, the largest outflow since 1948, pushing the two-year total above 500 000 and forcing Netanyahu’s cabinet to slap a travel ban on Jewish dual nationals to stem the leak. Investor confidence cratered: venture funds paused term sheets, construction sites stand idle, and mega-projects wait on credit that no longer clears. The finance ministry, staring at a deficit set to shove public debt past 75 % of GDP, begged for an extra $857 M in defence cash while slicing $200 M from hospitals and schools.
Analysts peg Israel’s aggregate loss between $11.5 B and $17.8 B, up to 3.3 % of GDP, before counting long-tail hits from halted exports, cancelled IPOs, and sovereign-risk downgrades. Iran, still sitting on its uranium stockpile, spent a fraction of that yet forced the self-styled “Start-Up Nation” into a liquidity scramble, an insurance panic, and a brain-drain spiral. Tel Aviv promised deterrence; Tehran handed it a balance sheet in red ink and the visible stamp of strategic humiliation.
_____
1 It’s not clear how much depth and resilience Israel’s economy (and society) have. Some on the anti-war right assert that Israel is a fake economy, more an imperial outpost than a reasonably self-supporting country. This is a topic I’d like to examine further but lack the bandwidth at this juncture. Any reader data points (better yet data sources) are very much welcome.
On the surface, Israel’s import and export statistics don’t indicate much US dependence…
To flip the question: what becomes of Israel if it continues to suffer an exodus, particularly of highly skilled, highly mobile professionals and experts? Many argue that the US and wealthy Zionists can continue to prop Israel up on an open-ended basis. But what if enough “talent” leaves and businesses shutter so that the support goes into what increasingly looks like a welfare queen? And how does a state that has become that much of a dependency defend itself in a neighborhood that it has united against it?
Now to some of the highlights from the important Mondoweiss story, which I encourage you to read in full. Critically, it describes severe, potentially irreparable damage all across the economy:
The economic indicators speak of nothing less than an economic catastrophe. Over 46,000 businesses have gone bankrupt, tourism has stopped, Israel’s credit rating was lowered, Israeli bonds are sold at the prices of almost “junk bonds” levels, and the foreign investments that have already dropped by 60% in the first quarter of 2023 (as a result of the policies of Israel’s far-right government before October 7) show no prospects of recovery. The majority of the money invested in Israeli investment funds was diverted to investments abroad because Israelis do not want their own pension funds and insurance funds or their own savings to be tied to the fate of the State of Israel. This has caused a surprising stability in the Israeli stock market because funds invested in foreign stocks and bonds generated profit in foreign currency, which was multiplied by the rise in the exchange rate between foreign currencies and the Israeli Shekel. But then Intel scuttled a $25 billion investment plan in Israel, the biggest BDS victory ever.
The crisis strikes deeper at the means of production of the Israeli economy.
These are all financial indicators. But the crisis strikes deeper at the means of production of the Israeli economy. Israel’s power grid, which has largely switched to natural gas, still depends on coal to supply demand. The biggest supplier of coal to Israel is Colombia, which announced that it would suspend coal shipments to Israel as long as the genocide was ongoing. After Colombia, the next two biggest suppliers are South Africa and Russia. Without reliable and continuous electricity, Israel will no longer be able to pretend to be a developed economy. Server farms do not work without 24-hour power, and no one knows how many blackouts the Israeli high-tech sector could potentially survive. International tech companies have already started closing their branches in Israel.
An aside: the loss of Colombia’s coal supplies clearly would have a serious impact, if nothing else on prices as Israel scrambles for substitute sources. Whether the result is Ukraine-style daily outages has yet to be seen, but if so, for an advanced economy, the impact would be devastating. These are the top coal exporters in 2023, per Tradeimex Solutions, so Israel is not bereft of alternatives.
But how quickly can it line up replacement supply agreements? And to what extent would these new shipments be vulnerable to Houthi attacks?
The flip side is this section may somewhat understate the deteriorating condition of Israel’s businesses. In a July story, the Cradle cites CEO of Israeli information services and credit risk management firm, CofaceBdi, who said 60,000 businesses are expected to have closed by year end 2024. The tweeted video below claims (without sourcing, but its other stats echo those from mainstream accounts) that 50% of startups are on track to closing within six months:
Israel’s Economy is falling apart from so many angles pic.twitter.com/2iPeLPipyB
— Gaza Under Attack_🇵🇸 (@Palestine001_) July 17, 2024
Back to Mondoweiss:
Israel’s reputation as a “startup nation” depends on its tech sector, which in turn depends on highly educated employees. Israeli academics report that joint research with universities abroad has declined sharply thanks to the efforts of student encampments. Israeli newspapers are full of articles about the exodus of educated Israelis. Prof. Dan Ben David, a famous economist, argued that the Israeli economy is held together by 300,000 people (the senior staff in universities, tech companies, and hospitals). Once a significant portion of these people leaves, he says, “We won’t become a third world country, we just won’t be anymore.”…
The two sectors of the Israeli economy that do not report a crash are the arms companies, which are reporting high sales (although most of them are domestic, arming the genocide), and the “exits” — as international corporations scavenge the carcasses of Israel’s tech sector looking for bargains. Even Google expressed interest in buying the Israeli cyber security company Wiz, founded by Israeli intelligence officers who are eager to sell their company to Google in order to be able to leave Israel…
In the age of the information economy, the economic prospects of states are neither determined by raw materials nor the quality of the workforce. Instead, we live in an era of an “economy of expectations.” The hype of Israel’s “startup nation” has turned into a #Shutdownnation. Two senior Israeli economists, Jugene Kendel and Ron Tzur, published a secret report in which they predict that Israel will not survive to its 100th year. The report is kept secret because they do not want it to become a self-fulfilling prophecy, but they gave interviews about it.
I’ve started watching the latest Danny Haiphong / Brian Berletic discussion. The latter makes the point that economic damage to Israel doesn’t matter, as the USA will just foot the bill. I think that’s probably true for the most part, but some things are harder to replace, for example the years of work invested into the labs of the Weizmann Institute, and possibly the personnel. They will likely also have a hard time recruiting foreign talent.
This is Berletic not understanding how economies or complex organizations work. The same way America can’t magic an industrial and weapons-building capacity into existence, even with money, destroyed businesses, institutions, and departed key professional and administrators can’t be replaced easily, if at all.
They can be forced to stay, or sent back. The USSR operated in this way for decades.
Israel has already barred its citizens from fleeing by air. I think exit visas are on the cards, especially for eastern european immigrants.
Wouldn’t it be funny if Russians impose a version of Jackson-Vanik on Israel? Not an idle threat since a lot of Israelis are dual nationals or are legally able to claim it. Russians are a particularly large group among them.
Thanks, I hadn’t yet progressed from money not equal to 155mm shells to money can’t fix israel.
Maybe discussing the cost of defensive missiles is misleading – if the missiles can’t be readily replaced the loss is defense, not dollars.
I wonder if the Israeli economists not expecting 100 years thought israel would attack iran in a war of attrition.
I also wonder if the higher Ed workers that can’t leave are looking at israel as hotel California. I assume at some point people will be allowed to leave? Would they grab it, thinking the door might shut at any time?
Oh by the way I didn’t see any mention of Haifa Port demolition and the humungous cost to repair/restore the facility, same goes to all those airports hosting Aeroplanes. As much as Pres Trump and his fellow travelers in House and senate might want to foot the bill, with the US economy facing head winds of Unemployment / Inflation etc they will find it hard to explain to the deplorables why such an expenditure is necessary while they happily are cutting Medicare and other subsidies to American people. It is going to be fun time.. Thanks
No first-world western nation can survive an atttritional war against a peer, barring massive social coercion (coming soon to Israel) or social unity (2023-25 Russia)
amazing that ~15 years ago, the “intelligensia” was harping about “anti-fragility”…..then Taleb’s book tour ended and the hive moved onto the newest TedTalk mind-viirus.
You are forgetting the lessons of Ukraine. Propaganda, censorship, and internal state security can force a population and country to stay on message and on the front lines in spite of all reason and popular opinion. All those lessons were on display these last two weeks during the Israel/Iran exchanges. Do not assume the western regimes will simply crumble at the first Oreznik missile.
Not arguing against the effectiveness of propaganda (and fanaticism), but I think geography undermines the comparison insofar as Ukraine is huge and has regions where Ukrainians can find at least some respite from the war; Israel is the size of New Jersey and as the self-choking noose tightens, there’ll be no place to hide.
Not to mention the fact that Israelis don’t have a genuine connection to the land the way Palestinians do. A significant percentage hold foreign passports, and many more have access to preferential policies that would allow them to live elswhere, like in Germany, even without a passport. They are there for the sunshine, good food, and heavily subsidized lifestyle, because they were promised total safety. The fact that the government is not letting them leave, and that many are leaving anyway speaks volumes.
in Israel during the early 1980s inflation rates rose to over 100% for multiple years, climbing to 430% in 1985. At its extreme, this is known as hyperinflation
https://hbr.org/2022/11/3-lessons-from-hyperinflationary-periods
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Those countries that have experienced hyperinflation, are more likely to have it happen again, for what its worth.
Periods of hyperinflation not always, but frequently, occur in countries just after they lost a war, explained by the massive loss of productive capacity combined with the high spending and financing needs of the government: Austria, Germany, Hungary, Poland, Russia after WWI; Hungary after WWII; China in 1945-1949; Yugoslavia during its breakup 1992-1994.
Perhaps Israel, as you surmise, will join that list.
All of the South American countries hyperinflated without a shot being fired against a foe in the 1980’s, but yes war helps, it’s why the USA did it twice.
So war, or being run by kleptocrats. Not a good sign for Israel, or the US.
Comeuppance see me sometime.
Hyperinflation periods happen when (among other problems) a country has a lot of govt. debt that is denominated in an outside currency (or gold).
Y’know, there’s a lot of debt around the world denominated in dollars. If the US dollar slowly loses its pre-eminence, would all of that debt have a slow jubilee?
No, that is false. It takes particular circumstances to create hyperinflation, specifically a large loss of productive capacity.
This is a helluva report. Glass jaw indeed. I was reading about the damage that both Israel and Iran received and Israel came out far worse simply because they had no depth. Iran has about half a dozen major ports and Israel has only two. Iran shut down Haifa and pretty soon the other would have been shut down as well. Israel only has one international airport while Iran has several. And like their ports, they were operating during this war. But reading everything in this post, Israel is suffering a death by a thousand cuts. Some things will never be repaired in Israel no matter how much money they throw at it – assuming that they even have the money. Who wants to build big industrial concerns there if one day it may get hit with an Iranian ballistic missiles. It would be better to build in a safer country – like the Sudan. Said in a comment yesterday that this war will be seen as the high tide mark of Israel dominance and will double down on it. But I really do not know how they will cope with learning that they are no longer a safe country anymore free to rampage their way across the region. Will their hubris let them?
I concur about the report. Good to find reporting / posting / commentary (what is this thing called the Internet?) that looks below the press releases and financial thought processes to consider real, physical, reality.
Yes, as a h/t to some comments below, the US will bail out Israel with money. But that is all they can do. Money can’t buy what doesn’t exist: like 155 mm artillery shells, and other such toys. Or 24/7 electrical and water supply. You need people, factories, infrastructure, and time! to put it all together (it ain’t a SimCity vid game). So regardless of how much money is dumped on Israel, they aren’t the swaggering bad boys they use to be (but the USA Mafia made man, Netanyahu, will stay in office so there is that).
It’s funny because later sim city games showed just how incredibly costly and difficult difficult repair after disaster is
I’ve been wondering how long before the Israelis come to the U.S. seeking a bailout in the $20-$100 billion range. I’m sure Congress and Trump will be happy to oblige.
That won’t fix it. Israel lacks strategic depth, and it won’t take much to get Iran back to pounding it with ballistic missiles. No one is going to invest capital to build a target on a target range, and no capital –} no talent seeking opportunities. On top of rendering Israel un-investable, there is the old problem of something like 40% of the population being Ultra-Orthodox, dependent on state aid to survive, unwilling to serve in the IDF and wanting to impose strict Jewish law on their secular brothers and sisters (who are subsidizing them and actually serving). On the international front, Gaza is becoming a millstone around the neck dragging them to the bottom of the ocean. One good exogenous shock at this point and it all falls apart.
Really nice. This should become the accepted phraseology when talking about israel.
It’s also worth pointing out Iran was actually very kind in its targeting, and could have easily reduced Israel to the stone age by taking out, say, it’s few remaining desalinization plants and it’s power grid. And human casualties seem to have been extremely light, either by design or by good luck.
Nevertheless, the reputational damage to Israel is of course going to be devastating since it has traded on its invulnerability almost since its creation in 1948. The country is weak, population is fleeing, it’s finances are in tatters, and of course it’s government leaders have long stopped being even slightly sane. This kind of damage is going to take generations to repair, if ever.
Re: desalinization and power grids, there has been discussion on this site recently that both types of infrastructure are surprisingly difficult to knock out.
Desalination and pumping the desalinated water both are “energy intensive”, so technically there’s just the power grid to knock out and the water flow will stop.
Ukrainians may a have a word or two to say about the difficulty of knocking out the power plants and transformers. Apparently good results can be achieved with a bunch of Iranian kamikaze drones and a couple of cruise missiles used once or twice a week.
There was pushback on the desalination. IIRC you hit not the plant proper but key ancillary operations.
Reading what you say, it sounds just like what happened in Syria, not a long time ago.
“there is the old problem of something like 40% of the population being Ultra-Orthodox”
That many?
I know this is Wikipedia with all the necessary precautions, but the page on religion in Israel states:
“Ultra-Orthodox sector is relatively young and numbered in 2020 more than 1,1 million (14 percent of total population).”
The other page on Haredi Judaism put their numbers at 1’334’909 in 2023, and 1’392’469 in 2024. Given a total population in 2023 of 9’795’000 that gives 13.6% of the total Israeli population, or 18.6% of the total Jewish population of Israel.
I do not put in question the influence of the ultra-orthodox Jews, but I doubt that their proportion of the Israeli population has been multiplied by 2.15 to 2.94 in 2 years.
You are correct. But its ~40% of the school age population (<18 years) . . so give it 20 years.
Google and wikipedia tell me there are 2.3 million arabs among the 9.5 million citizens in Israel, 1.3/(9.5-2.3) or 18% the population. But if you neglect the old and young as unable to serve militarily, you get much closer to 40%.
In six weeks to six months Iran will have a few nuclear armed IRBM. Then the Ayatollah be like Kim Jung Un
Note both Japan and South Korea ignored Trump’s Brussels “Daddy” moment. The “first island” chain is neutral at best wrt US NATO ambition in west Pacific.
Hmm… perhaps I misunderstand your intent, but if Japan is neutral, then why is the govt providing all the cops and cover to expand the US military footprint in Okinawa?
Re: Iran, how long before they are attacked again? I expect there are still Mossad sleeper cells that will carry out assassinations and sabotage operations. If and when (I think we can assume “when”) that happens, will Iran lob a few more missiles at Israel?
Japan is trying to wriggle out of its status as a US military protectorate. It’s not a linear process.
Many of the ultra-Orthodox don’t even see their secular “brothers and sisters” as Jews, adding to the weakness and fragmentation.
There’s financial cost and then there’s reputational cost. I think the reputational cost to Isr within the US has been very large, particularly among the under-50’s. / my 2 cents
BTW I am in love with the lady in the BDS post you have up here. This is the kind of take-no-prisoners attitude and confidence that we saw on the left in the 60s and 70s in the US, and I have been sorely missing it ever since.
Hopefully I have just been missing it. Would everyone please turn the volume way up and keep it going? We need all we can get and then some.
It will be interesting to see just how much damage the Iranian missle campaign did now that the media blanket has been lifted.
I do agree that the bigger problem is lost of investor confidence to build anything new and the brain drain.
Yves, thank you, thank you, thank you for keeping on top of this vital and rapidly evolving issue. There is a plethora of stupid coverage and it’s almost worse than nothing in our information system right now as a result. You are doing your usual amazing work of ferreting out the good shit and bringing it into the light of day.
It’s to your credit that despite war and death being somewhat off topic for a financial blog (!), you have nevertheless centered much of your work on the various wars for the last several years. This is the kind of agility and freedom from dogmatism that I think most of us love about the non-profit press, and dare I say it, naked capitalism in particular.
Bless you.
Yes, it has the feel of the aftermath of a big earthquake and more temblors might be on the way, no hurry to rebuild.
100%! Thank you, Yves!
I second this. I’m very grateful, Yves, for yourself and contributors being able to cut through the relentless firehose of BS. You’re doing the world a important service. If it wasn’t for this aggregating of the wheat from the chaff it would all be so unbearable. Thank you.
Fascinating. Of course our mainstream media has censored any consideration, let alone analysis of Israel’s economic situation.
Even if the recent costs are $15bn, that is a relatively small % with a GDP of $500bn. However…….
The US donates military assistance of $3.8bn pa already plus a widely reported $9bn and $5bn of US debt since October 2023.
Yet one source (Watson Institute at Browns) suggests US spending is as high as $23bn – of which $17.9bn is “security assistance” up to the end of September 2024, and June 2025 will have a huge additional impact.
The question is how much of the US bankrolling is aid and how much is as loans or bonds ?
Does the abolition of USAID affect this ?
Will dollar/shekel exchange rates worsen or improve the Israeli debt position ?
As the costs will be mostly in US$, so international debt in the global reserve currency, then Israel cannot simply issue its own new fiat money to cover these sums, so will need very considerable external support.
Loss of future Israeli GDP must include a crash in tourism; lower industrial growth outside the military sector; high tech enterprises etc; – surely enough to create a longer term depression, though possibly there will be some growth offsets against rebuilding costs and defence industry expansion.
Emigration from Israel is another negative with unknown effects.
Longer term impacts will be at the very least debilitating.
From where future foreign investment will come is an open question..
Israel evidently needed the ‘ceasefire’ as much or more than the Iranians.
Just hope there is a positive knock on effect for the poor Palestinians in Gaza.
One should add the tax exempt donations to Israel, which also sum up to some billions per year
And the unique US loan guarantees on Israeli debt securities, which I first learned about at NC in the last few months!
US guarantees Israeli gov. bond issues so finance is not the problem. Repairs to any sort of damage nowadays are rarely successful in restoring things to their previous state especially at the end of a long logistics line. Hurricane damage is a good example. War making supplies can be restocked but infrastructure will be a different ball game.
We just don’t have the capacity any more, we are maxxed out just keeping the plates spinning. Tim Morgan suggests that worldwide economic inflexion started in 2023 and we are already in degrowth being hidden by things like US running a current account of 6% of GDP. I know that flood repairs in Queensland are slipshod in a way that would never have been tolerated in days past.
They are committed now to borrow their way to oblivion, no retrenching allowed,the very earth we stand on will be pillaged into a desert.
Guaranteeing the bonds does not relieve Israel of its obligation to pay, ex a default.
One wonders how long Israeli voters can keep voting for national suicide based on ancient mythological stories. I guess US voters have followed the same self-destructive path, thanks to both parties serving the plutocrats while they spin different fictions about caring for the “middle class”. Unlike recent immigrants, the sabra in Israel and the Joe Sixpack Americans would both find it too painful to pull up stakes and emigrate somewhere else, so you would think at some point they would get serious about ousting their murderous leaders and putting somebody sane in charge. But it doesn’t look like “democracy” is the way to do it, since that has been effectively neutered as a way of changing anything substantive. I think JFK had something to say about where that kind of situation leads.
Imo there’s been a slow exodus of seculars from Israel that likely will turn into a rush when the nearly total restrictions on departures ends. So ultras and right wingers become a stronger majority of those remaining, granted it remains to be seen if/when Netanyahu loses support for the latest disaster.
So in Israel as in the US, the armageddon cultists end up in charge of the nuclear weapons. Why does this not give me a warm feeling of optimism for our future?
Finally, an uplifting bit of news about Israel. I hope they manage to stay on trend until its obvious end point.
And that the nukes get dismantled, never to be heard of again.
Isreal killed twelve family members of the last nuclear scientist it assassinated, including women, children and the elderly. Twelve people to get to one mid-level scientist (according to Press TV and Prof Marandi), in what world can a country relying on this level of brutality to ensure its long-term survival actually survive? The physical infrastructure can be rebuilt, what this war delivered is a coup de grace to the Idea of Israel itself as the land of milk and honey, a safe haven where Jews can escape persecution while acting out their ethnosupremacist worldview without shame and fear of sanction (because said worldview is baked into the operating manual of the state). Having listened to a few interviews of Israeli citizens after the ceasefire was announced, most look absolutely shell-shocked, as if witnessing a long cherished belief (an aura of invincibility and the right to act with absolute impunity) being dismantled in real time by a brutal collision with reality. The load bearing columns holding up the idea of the State of Israel are now so rotten they’re being held up by the termites. The country is now entering a period of mourning not just its dead, but the profound loss of its identity and status.
The last thing Israel needs is exogenous geopolitical shocks that act as a force multiplier to the Internal disintegration already underway due to social and economic pressures, yet Netanyahu’s bellicose policies entangle the country in the sorts of messes it cannot afford at this time in its history.
Can a society that commits mass murder be considered sane to manage it’s economy and run the country? At some point these have to converge and the “mad man” will inflict self harm. This applies to US as well – it is inflicting self harm, to its middle class by constantly waging wars and proxy wars. Sanity laws and competency laws have to apply to Nations as well as individuals!
Speaking of Mondoweiss the man himself has an article out today.
https://mondoweiss.net/2025/06/the-iran-crisis-and-the-crisis-of-jewish-identity/
The ideas I stated above used to be marginalized. The only positive outcome of the unlawful aggression that is causing immeasurable suffering in the Middle East is the effect on the U.S. discourse. Israel is today hated inside the Democratic Party, for ample reasons. Zohran Mamdani is rising in the New York City mayoral race, in part because progressives are rewarding his refusal to truckle to Israel. New York Magazine’s unprecedented cover story calling out the Democratic Party’s complicity in the destruction of humanitarian law (written by Suzy Hansen) is further proof.
and
This is a vulnerable time for American Jews, as Zohran Mamdani says. Overwhelmingly, our community is identified with a brutal aggressor. Zionist identity politics are the work of generations of Jewish leaders building an alliance between Jews here and in Israel. Myself, I have always opposed the conflation of Judaism and Zionism, and I cared more about actual American bombs falling on civilians than Jewish fears, yet I must also acknowledge the real bases for Jewish anxiety, in light of the violent attacks on Jews in Colorado and D.C.
and finally
I single out Jews because I’m Jewish, and the Jewish community was my first home. I single out Jews because we have a greater influence over the politics of the Middle East than other American communities. And it is clear that the Jewish discourse needs a revolution — and so does the American discourse.
What he doesn’t add is that the mostly non Jewish Trumpies have hijacked Zionism to go after the left and other groups they dont like. It has become the new McCarthyism even as good Dem George Clooney ends his Good Night and Good Luck (available on Youtube) on B’way. And so, apologists for genocide, “at long last have you no decency?” Events are not repeating but rhyming.
Israeli propaganda is full volume to imply Israel is safe from Iranian missile attack.
IDF is claiming it successfully destroyed hundreds of Transport Erector Launchers with infiltrators. The teams either used laser designation to line of sight aircraft or ATGM like the TEL was an apartment building with an atomic scientist.
If this were a thing missiles would have stopped and IDF would be fighting now!
It does give Iran a risk aversion plan for their TELs and borders.
TELs are relatively cheap compared to missiles, and Iran can also build simple launch silos, mostly decoys, in large numbers. Israel has burned up the intelligence and sabotage network it built over many years in Iran, and it will take a long time to reconstitute it. The salient fact is Israel has no effective defense against advanced ballistic missiles (and neither will the U.S.). Israel’s neighbors have seen this demonstrated, and they will arm themselves accordingly.
Wasn’t that point about ‘no defense against ballistic missles’ made here not long ago, that being the reason for detente between the US and Russia back in the day? Was it that both sides recognized that any major missle exchange was mutual annihilation or only a nuclear exchange?
I suffer various skin disorders, and consequently I have some ointments manufactured in Israel from Teva Pharmaceuticals. I had an appointment with the neurologist where she recommended an injection of fremanezumab, also made in Israel by Teva. Is there some sort of favoritism going on with my medical insurance gladly paying an Israeli company for generic ointments?
As we know, there is plenty of collusion among the government, medical insurance sector, pharmaceutical sector, and even the oligopoly in shipping and delivery for drugs. The political and financial structure of these entities is likely structured in such a way to funnel money to the appropriate individuals. My insurance in particular hates referrals and diagnostics. They vehemently hate tertiary referrals, fighting like mad to get those rejected. What they love is drugs. Strangely, the section of my overly bureaucratic medical insurance is extremely reluctant to authorize anything, yet the section that pays for drugs will do so without any hesitation. Did the federal and state government insist on using drugs from Teva in Israel? Those Iranian missiles were pretty accurate and destructive to critical Israeli infrastructure like ports and oil refineries. Did anybody think to destroy Israeli drug manufacturers to cut off this source of monopoly/economic rent? It is certainly plausible that existing contracts for drug purchases from Israel will be curtailed and those “highly skilled, highly mobile professionals and experts” in the Israeli pharmaceutical sector leave permanently.
Wow. This is really interesting. I have to check our NHS’ sourcing. One can also have a look at Tammy Bruce’s endorsement of USA as “greatest country in the world, after Israel” for a clearer indication of USA’s subservience to Israel’s interests.
My country, U.K., is equally subservientd, courtesy of corrupt leading classes and their Israeli corruptors.
Anything ending in “…zumab” is real serious stuff and hope you can get another source of your medications. I would hate to have to depend on anything Israeli; I have stopped buying stuff from there or conducting business with their firms, quite a while ago.
Teva is a major generics supplier.
Insurers love generics.
I am not sure there is a conspiracy here beyond profit maximisation or cost reduction.
It couldn’t have happened to a more deserving bunch of campers!
This is pretty mean, but one can ask with indignation, “Yeah, where’s your Messiah now?” Yet the genocide and rape of Palestine will continue.
I remember this from the Simpsons episode where Homer loves Flanders. Homer surprisingly befriends Flanders, and this causes Flanders to behave erratically. Chief Wiggum arrests Flanders and asks, “where’s your messiah now, Flanders?” This is itself a reference to Edward G. Robinson’s character in the movie The Ten Commandments. I, of course, saw the Simpsons episode but not The Ten Commandments.
The character played by Edward G. Robinson is the main antagonist of Moses and is swallowed by the earth with his followers as punishment for his idolatry (building the golden calf).
Somethings are subtle. Iran didn’t have to drop flyers that told the residents of Israel to evacuate or inititate regime change, their missile accuracy did the job. Putin din’t have to corral Netanyahu by threatening to tell Russian speakers there was on more cover from Russia.., instead Iran is a ‘strategic’ partner of Russia. Israel has no strategic depth and Netanyahu provides endless war. Perhaps Trump was offering an off ramp by soliciting for a pardon for his BFF Bibi. What is interesting is why did Iran accept a cease fire when apparently it could have finished the job on Israel’s economy? Was a calculation made that the victim was beyond saving?
I don’t think Iran wanted this war, not wanted to continue it, partly because that’s not how they seem to roll and partly because they’re somewhat lacking air force makes them too vulnerable at the moment. Finishing Israel would have been costly.
Which brings to mind that I saw a photo today of an Iranian officer – looks a lot like Hamid Vahedi, the commander of the Iranian Air Force – sitting in a cockpit of Chinese Chengdu J-10 with a wide smile on his face.
Iran’s regime’s job is to survive, not “win” or “beat Israel.” Israel has enough nukes to glass over all the major populated areas in Iran, and they have the backing of the United States. Israel could be easily destroyed militarily–but Iran could also end up destroyed in the process. Iran made the best choice it could to insure the survival of the regime and the Iranian people–and I think Israel (and the rest of the world) may have learned a lesson in the process.
We quoted this explanation by Mark Sleboda in the into to the Middle East energy post by Satyajit Das:
Interesting stuff here but one thing just doesn’t add up for me. The Israeli intel agency Mossad gets high marks, they seem to know everything. The IDF is a modern trained military force that dominates its neighbors and works closely with high ranking US military personnel.
Meanwhile, I enjoy listening to someone like Larry Wilkerson especially when he talks about war games. And, for example, he warns us that in every war game with China, we lose and it might good nuclear as well. It seems the US runs war games all the time.
Didn’t Israel run a war game with Iran? They seem capable of killing top Iranian officials in their home, and capable of bombing Iran, but did they not run a war game to find out if their economy and country might get trashed? Or are they so filled with hatred for Iran and so confident the US will do the heavy lifting that they didn’t bother.
Oh yes, both Israel and the USA organized war games to figure out what could happen in the case of a war with Iran: the USA in 2012 and 2023; Israel in 2023 — as examples of those whose existence is known publicly.
I wonder how much one should make of yhe “results” of wargames. Theh are usually designed, as I understand it, to highlight particular problems and/or techniques. The Milennium Challenge fiasco happened b/c the van Riper antics made it difficult to study the problems what tptb eanted to study…although van Riper would have saud that, if things went bad, you wouldn’t have had the chance to use your fancypants techniques in the first place…
The Millenium Challenge war game was unusually expensive because it was intended to sell some new equipment and doctrines to Congress. That was the biggest reason they were so upset that Red was on the verge of winning. It was never intended to be realistic.
It may be that Netanyahu was not as concerned about the likely outcome of an “adventure” toward Iran as he was with the consequences of the collapse of his government. Even if the adventure turned out badly, the “rally ’round the flag” effect might grant some political breathing space.
It will be interesting to watch political developments in coming weeks and months as Israelis weigh the value of the war objectives “accomplished” with the very visible costs incurred.
Or perhaps he knew these were his last moments, it’s game over, and so it was now or never.
And based on the above consequences it would seem he has single-handedly ensured it will now be never.
Scott Ritter and Larry Wilkerson have disagreed vehemently re the IDF. Both say they are mediocre at best and exceedingly arrogant.
And clearly exceptionally ill-disciplined. As evinced by IDF soldiers taking selfies of themselves wearing lingerie looted from destroyed Palestinian homes and posting these and other grotesque images of dancing in the rubble of destroyed towns. That is not a sign of strength, resolve or proper discipline.
“Doomsday scenarios” is an apt description for this post.
I searched and could not find articles supporting the claim that the cabinet has placed a travel ban on Jewish dual nationals. Nor for the claim that 500,000 people have left Israel. Articles with these claims sourced to the Mideast Monitor no longer appear.
An Israeli source that I found said that 82,700 left Israel, but with returning Israelis and immigrants, the net loss was only 18,200 in 2024. One-time war costs of 3 to 5 percent of GDP do not appear that large and may be manageable.
I am no supporter of Israel’s war in Gaza or its occupation of the West Bank, but I am too pessimistic to accept aspirational hope that Israel will implode after its wars.
That’s funny, here is the Haaretz article:
https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2025-06-16/ty-article/.premium/israel-prohibits-airlines-from-letting-israeli-citizens-leave-the-country/00000197-7854-d3ff-a7bf-7cd4b67d0000
I don’t know why anyone who wasn’t an ultranationalist or eschatological fundamentalist anticipating the end times wouldn’t leave Israel at this point, unless they couldn’t.
Senate Parliamentarian eviscerates, disembowels, and obliterates “Big Beautiful Piece of S%$#!”
https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/5371008-thune-senate-parliamentarian-medicaid/
Anyone have an address to send her flowers?
More bad news for the anti-Christ:
https://thehill.com/homenews/house/5371828-zinke-senate-gop-bill-public-land/
Senator Zinke (MT) is a NO, that makes three hard noes, including Rand Paul and Mike Lee. Waffling moderates like Susan Collins are IFFY at best.
Interesting dive.
Only a comment about form.
A great part of the post was at a footnote 1.
Not sure if it was intentional.
Thanks for great readings and sources!
Yes, that was by design.
Great analysis. I had chanced upon it earlier today. Only wish the numbers in the tweet had sources, but as Yves’ analysis shows, they are well corroborated by multiple outlets. Anyone following the genocide was well aware that Israel’s stability is held up, like a bicycle in motion, by the momentum of the wars and genocide. Stopping the genocide and entering a state of “peace” (if one can call Apartheid that much) would entail a reckoning that might bankrupt any future the colony could feasibly have had. Or, in other words, it’s not just Bibi who needs the genocide to go on.
This, “it’s not just Bibi who needs the genocide to go on.”, I’m afraid, seems true. A large proportion of Israeli’s are just fine with the genocide in Gaza and the bombing of Iran. What goes around comes around.
Speaking of Thomas Keith, I take this tweet to be responding to recent rumors that Iran is engaging with China on military purchases.
I’m not sure how much use an air force is to Iran but I’ve been certainly underwhelmed by Russian military support so far and I agree with Keith’s gist in that regard. Whatever China did or didn’t do, it’s certainly willing to export stuff.
To the extent that an air force is useful, the theory is that you want robust AWACS-fighter-missile integration–as Pakistan is presumed to have demonstrated recently using Chinese (and Swedish) hardware. Russia is particularly weak on that front despite good missile tech–its airborne radar technology is at least a decade behind the times and its AWACS situation is woeful.
Interesting if true, but just rumor at this point. Let’s see if something substantive leaks out in the coming months.
Assuming the Iran-Russia defense pact is finalized I expect Iran will have s400 AD this year. Plus, even less likely, iRussia will loan Iran a squadron of modern Russian fighters, complete with Russian pilots, at least until Iranians can be trained?
So Iran can pretty soon be ready for round 2. Israel?
They need new missile replacements. Money no object, Sam can pay, but Sam can’t make them very fast, maybe not at all given both mfg and rare earth issues. Haifa can’t be fixed quickly. The aura of invincibility likely gone forever.
Usians might buy the Israeli story of minimal damage, censors might be able to minimize pics that msm anyway won’t want to publish, but Israelis must already be aware of the disaster. Can even nimble and tenacious Netanyahu continue to cling to his perch?
How delicious if regime change starts in israel rather than Iran.
Quote from Laith Marouf interview with Rachel Blevin featured on NC a few days ago (17 June).
“So we saw a rush of 2 million Israelis trying to buy tickets to leave. And that’s why the Zionist authorities are freaking out. They already have lost like a million and a half settlers over the last two years that ran away to the West and another two million would mean more than 50% have left [Ed: of the jews] and there’s no more state at that point.”
An exodus of 3.5 million of a 9.5 million person economy should decrease overall economic activity by >40% (probably much more as it will be the better off who flee with their assets). This is beyond the scope that the US can manage to balance by helicopter money, especially since no companies will invest in a target range (bereft of experts).
It’s not a 9.5 million person economy. 2.3 million were in the open air concentration camp called Gaza. It’s at best a 6.2 million person economy. And then you have the ultra-Orthodox who are welfare queens and stay home all day to pray.
Wikipedia claims that the Israelis do not count the Gazans in their population (so Israelis do not have to struggle ethically with genociding Israeli citizens).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Israel
“The Israel Central Bureau of Statistics definition of the Area of the State of Israel
includes East Jerusalem since 1967, which Israel unilaterally annexed
includes the Golan Heights since 1982, which Israel unilaterally annexed
excludes the West Bank other than East Jerusalem.”
A quick look at the CBS Israeli site concurred with what Israel considers Israeli territory.
I have begun to wonder about the effect of fleeing (including, perhaps, by plan) hard-core Zionists retrenching in the US. As the end of the “Israeli project” starts to loom largely, could that be the fallback plan, beyond and post Netanyahu? I imagine the core of the Zionist regime is already concerned by the slippage of its control in the US. Thinking ahead, perhaps they are planning on getting that control back, perhaps including a reincarnation with a new Zionist project centered in the US. If Zionism is defeated in Israel, could it re-emerge in some other country, like the US? Zionists, like neocons, have no reverse gear. They mutate, transform, adapt and keep on going.
This would be somewhat like Mercouris’s speculation that Zelenski of Ukraine will stay to the bitter end in order to position himself to set up a “presidency in exile” with support from the Europeans. All, of course, in that case, to keep the grift money flowing.
A summary of the Kendel-Tzur report from last year.
America won’t allow there beloved Israel not to reach its 100th birthday, the Zionists in America would happily bankrupt America or even allow there cities to be nuked. Trump in particular has allowed himself to be surrounded by those who read the Old Testament and are infinitely more extreme than there ISIS ones,there neo Nazis in Ukraine, Pol pot or anybody America has nurtured and inflicted on civilisation before. It’s not just Israel that needs to go, it’s the USA.
The proof in the pudding will be whether Israel conducts more strikes. I suspect that it will, and with more and more US help, overt or covert. I hope I’m wrong. We’ll probably know soon enough.