and it serves as a “warning” and pretty open threat to the opponents in the region. again. without explicitly admitting to even have nuclear weapons. again.
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Everything that autocrats suggest is ridiculous, and yet we are generally counseled to believe them anyway.
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Dude must have an incredibly narrow definition of innocent. Perhaps he’s confusing Gaza with Sodom.
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Mordechai Vanunu was sentenced to 18 years in prison for revealing the Israeli nuclear program, 11 of them spent in solitary confinement. Will the minister get to enjoy the hospitality of the penal system?
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I’m afraid I have to put my “nuclear studies” hat on here. I agree with you in your wider point - that what we are seeing is horrifying, and cannot possibly be tolerated.
However, that “total explosive power” figure is problematic - you can’t really compare 18kt of bombs delivered over weeks, to a single point explosion. Both are unfathomably devastating but their impacts are vastly different - an 18kt airburst would have pretty much 100% casualties over ten square kilometres (per Alex Wellerstein’s Nukemap, and in line with the 12km^2 assessment of the Hiroshima bomb), which comes out to 150,000 dead at pre-war population densities, or perhaps half that now that some of the population have been displaced - but not counting the 250,000 serious injuries which would be unlikely to be survivable in the current circumstances. That’s also not counting the associated post-detonation fire, which is rarely mentioned but a huge contributor to expected casualties from a nuclear strike on a built up area: more of Hiroshima was destroyed by fire than by direct effects; and it was far less densely populated or constructed when it was attacked than Gaza is now. The total casualties for Hiroshima are somewhere in the 50-150,000 range.
On the point of “confined to Gaza” or not: 18kt is comparatively small - the 5psi and 50% third-degree burns radii (a few kilometres) for a nominal 18kt airburst would be completely inside Gaza even at the narrowest point. But an Israeli nuke is unlikely to be this small and they are highly unlikely to have reliable selectable yield technology - it makes no sense for a deterrent weapon pointed at Iran or Saudi to be dial-a-yield, the whole point is to inflict literal megadeaths.
So on your main point - no, the current horrors in Gaza are not remotely comparable to the effects of even a single, implausibly-small modern nuclear weapon. But I think making the comparison at all, misses the two important points: first and most important, that 10,000 people are already dead and more than a million displaced, de-housed, and victims of at best an indiscriminate campaign intentionally targeted against civilians (and more plausibly to me, a genocide in progress). This is inexcusable, regardless of the cause or method. Despite being ‘a nukes guy’, we shouldn’t fixate on nuclear weapons here. Genocide by stick and rock is just as bad.
Secondly, though: nuclear weapons are an order of magnitude above even the devastation we have seen so far. My “pick a number” estimate for the damage they would do if used right now in Gaza is that we would see half a million people dead in a week, from a single plausibly-sized (30-40kt) “small, somewhat modern, deterrent” nuclear weapon used against Gaza. The damage is simply incomprehensible. Nevertheless, it’s perfectly possible to imagine a strike against (northern, even) Gaza that would result in “acceptably small” damage to Israeli cities and citizens for the most delusional and murderous elements of the Israeli government. Which is why those advocating for it need to be met with instant, total, permanent censure (rather than the nod-and-wink we’ve seen in the last few days).
(Despairing anti-proliferation, pro-disarmament rant over)
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This really tells me what I need to know.
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I’m guessing that’s where you stick the crazy guy that you have to agree to have on your cabinet but want to ignore
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No, I think he knows exactly what he’s spewing. He doesn’t believe there are innocent Gazans.
Edit for clarity and that I think Eliyahu is a POS
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Are you saying that, or are you saying he’s saying that? It would help to be clear on that point. Because, of course, that’s a bullshit position.
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I suppose then it’s more accurate to say that it’s not surprising that a member of the government is talking about nukes when the government’s stated goal is genocide and they’re already starving the entire population of the strip. (With or without the 25+ kilotons worth of bombs they’ve already dropped.)
Sorry, thought the verb spewing would indicate a negative connotation.
Clarity, glady given.
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Thanks for clarification!
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It should be understood that not all nuclear weapons are city-destroying devices. The smallest yield (publicly known) nuclear devices are between 1 and 10 kilotons. Hiroshima was about 15 kilotons. The Swift device was 0.19 kilotons. Man-portable nukes are definitely low-yield, but yet still highly devastating.
So the argument that use of nuclear weapons is infeasible because of the damage it will potentially cause to the rest of Israel needs to be tempered with the reality that small nukes exist and insane madmen who have access to them are even more likely to use the little ones than the really, really big ones.
Either way this insanity must stop and if there is anything that should unite us all, it is the revulsion towards anyone who would threaten the use of nuclear weapons on other human beings. Disarmament is one thing we should all be supporting.
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How about we not use any kind of nuke at all, ever. Why is that some controversial point?
And of course, the point isn’t just that it will be destructive to Israel, it’s that it will be destructive the people living in Gaza… 
So ya know… how about no.
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I’m not justifying their use - I find the concept absolutely abhorrent - but the reality is, micro-nukes (trigger devices) are a reality and the spectre of a gigantic, state-destroying mushroom cloud is naive. There are mini-nukes, and Israel is known to have them (see for example Mordechai Vanunus’ photos) … so actually this is a very, very serious reality that we must confront.
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It would still be a people destroying mushroom cloud. That’s the point. FFS.
I think many people are well aware of the variety of nukes that exist in the world. Most of us would like to see NONE used, and that was the POV many of us are coming from.
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Most people think nukes are gigantic weapons of immensely overwhelming force, and therefore their use would mean the end of the world and the “last option” when all else is failed, and this naivety in the general public is dangerous because it allows for the micro-nuke case to be made.
The insane misanthropes we’re talking about, who threaten to use nukes, do so because they know the low-yield, man-portable trigger devices can be deployed in such a way that they are indistinguishable from conventional explosive weapons - and that is entirely the basis of their threat.
Would you know the difference between the MOAB and a Swift suitcase nuke?
EDIT:
“Even a SMALL nuke is dangerous and should not be used. Period.”
Nobody is advocating for the use of any nukes here except insane misanthropic madmen. In fact, I’m not advocating the use of any weapons, so your straw man argument is irrelevant.
The fact is, misanthropes make this threat because of the wide disparity, as you have pointed out, in the general publics’ understanding of nuclear weapons.
They are man-portable, and do not necessarily need to level entire cities. Israel could deploy its trigger devices in the Gaza tunnels and the world would be none the wiser. And that is the true danger of this misanthropic argument - the yields are low enough to escape public outrage.
These madmen are more likely to deploy nukes that won’t impact the rest of Israel, and the danger is in us ignoring this fact.
Assuming you know what people here know… or even what most people know.
Even a SMALL nuke is dangerous and should not be used. Period. I think that’s the point that matters here, not the specific type of death from above that might be used…
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Is it? Or is it just that they have nukes and want to kill people with them, because they’re pro-genocide? Because there’s also the phrase “destroy Gaza” here, which doesn’t exactly sound like taking care not to level cities.
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