[American Thinker] Political differences have always existed in the United States, but the divide now cutting through families, friendships, workplaces, and communities has taken on a sharper, more unyielding edge. A thread by X user @TNG9791, posted on August 4, brought that reality into painfully personal focus. In it, the author contrasted the values, work ethic, and worldview of her two adult children and, in doing so, offered an unvarnished glimpse into the forces driving America further apart. Possibly a bit more than simply "political" divide.
The conservative child, she wrote, "works hard" and has been steadily employed since graduating from college. He recently bought his first home, refuses to ask for help, and even believes he should repay his parents for the cost of raising him. The liberal child, by contrast, sees capitalism as "evil" and resents the expectation of working through adulthood, preferring a life centered on hedonism rather than hard work.
This difference in attitudes is not just ideological; it shapes how each child approaches responsibility, independence, and family relationships. The thread described the relationship with the liberal daughter as "a roller coaster," marked by her disdain for her parents’ support of Donald Trump and her expectation of lifelong financial backing. The author lamented that liberal "indoctrination," in her view, has turned one of her children into "a stranger" and eroded the shared values she believes once held the country together.
This is not an isolated story. It reflects a much larger phenomenon. It’s one that science, sociology, and election returns all confirm. The nation’s ideological chasm is not just a matter of media influence, partisan spin, or cultural trends. Much of it is rooted in something far more fundamental: human biology.
For decades, research has shown that political orientation is not simply "taught" but strongly shaped by genetics. A landmark study in 2005 found that identical twins, who share nearly all their DNA, were far more likely to hold similar political beliefs than fraternal twins, even when raised in different environments. This work built on years of findings that certain traits — such as preference for order, risk tolerance, and openness to change — are passed down biologically.
Could this end the mystery of why Rolex's are not manufactured in Zimbabwe ?
[RedState] With some people, as my late grandfather used to say, "you can teach 'em, but you can't learn 'em." One such is Sweden's embarrassment, the Doom Pixie, Greta Thunberg. Remember her ill-fated mission to take aid to Gaza, aboard what wags called the "Selfie Yacht?" Remember that this excursion ended up with her caught, deported, and put on a carbon-spewing airliner home - in the cheap seats. The "aid" delivered would have fed a dozen people, at the most.
Well, she's trying it again, with "Selfie Yacht 2.0."
Insanity: Repeating the same thing with the expectation of a different outcome.
Greta Thunberg’s recent ‘Palestinian rescue mission’ was a total failure, carrying a tiny amount of supplies—enough, said some commentators, for “maybe a dozen people”—and resulting in her deportation from Israel.So she’s going to do it all over again!
This time, the Swedish activist, best known for her green zealotry, is planning on heading from Spain to Gaza with “dozens of boats,” with the overall intention of “break[ing] the illegal Israeli siege.”
Meanwhile, citizens across the world have been asked to participate in “encampments and demonstrations that will happen simultaneously.”
The initiative has been dubbed the ‘Global Sumud Flotilla’ and will supposedly include activists from more than 40 countries.
Others have dubbed it as yet another attempt to cover Thunberg with publicity.
#2
to her it's mediterranean cruise with all expenses paid.
Not to mention all the attention and publicity. Plus the endorphin rush from all that virtue signalling. Insanity, hell! This is living the dream. Unless we are talking about meaningful, real-world results...
#5
Yachts are expensive. Somebody has to be funding this girl. Now that USAID has been shut down I wonder who. Does the EU have an organization similar to USAID?
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
08/14/2025 12:17 Comments ||
Top||
[FoxNews] Only 54% of respondents to Gallup’s annual Consumption Habits survey conducted last month say they consume alcohol, which is the lowest on record in nearly 90 years.
"This coincides with a growing belief among Americans that moderate alcohol consumption is bad for one’s health, now the majority view for the first time," Gallup said in a press release.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited. by Daniil Pelymov
[REGNUM] On August 13, 1920, two rifle divisions of the Red Army broke through the defenses of the Polish Army, immediately took the Warsaw suburb of Radzymin and rushed to the capital of the Second Polish Republic. There were 23 kilometers left to Warsaw.
Budyonny's cavalry corps simultaneously made a deep detour to the south and also approached the river. By the end of August 13, the Reds, without significant resistance, reached 15 kilometers from the bridge over the Vistula.
Panic reigned in the city.
The phrase from order No. 1423 of front commander Mikhail Tukhachevsky, “Over the corpse of white Poland lies the path to a world fire,” seemed quite realistic.
But what happened is what is still called the “miracle on the Vistula” in Polish historiography, and what Vladimir Lenin called at the IX Conference of the RCP(b) “a profound, catastrophic defeat that we suffered as a result of the entire development of the operation.”
In reality, no miracle occurred. There were several strategic mistakes and one unfortunate omission, which turned the tide of the Soviet-Polish war. The necessary conclusions were drawn from the "miracle", which are still relevant today.
The "Polish-Bolshevik War" of 1919-21 is perceived in Poland as one of the most significant events in the national history of the 20th century and one of the baptisms of fire of the reborn state. But in fact, it was one of the episodes of the Civil War on the territory of the former Russian Empire, which entered the process of semi-disintegration in 1917.
The “Polish Front,” which formed in January 1919 on a line from Lithuania to Ukraine, was one of what would now be called “challenges” for Bolshevik Moscow (which was simultaneously holding back the onslaught of the White armies of Anton Denikin and Alexander Kolchak ).
Poland, which in the chaos after the First World War re-emerged from historical oblivion, was also a challenge for the White movement, which professed the principle of a united and indivisible Russia. The "chief" of the new Polish state, the recent socialist and fighter against tsarism, Józef Piłsudski, set other goals - the fragmentation of the "prison of nations" and the separation of the outlying territories from it. So that a greater Poland would spread its influence "from Finland to the Caucasus Mountains."
The Bolsheviks, in turn, saw in the "gentry state" a bridge over which the Red Army would reach Germany, in which Lenin's party saw the center of the future European and then world proletarian revolution. In January 1919, when the Poles began military operations against the Red Army, the uprising of the "Spartacus League" led by Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg was suppressed in Berlin.
But even after the failure of the "German October" in Moscow they considered that the German "Kerenskys" - the right-wing social democrats - were quite weak. Especially if help for Soviet Russia came on the bayonets of the Red Army.
"Lenin had a firm plan: to see things through to the end, that is, to enter Warsaw in order to help the Polish working masses overthrow Pilsudski’s government and seize power,” wrote Leon Trotsky, People’s Commissar for Military and Naval Affairs and Chairman of the Revolutionary Military Council of the RSFSR during the Civil War, in his memoirs.
HOW DONBASS MILITIAS LIBERATED KYIV
This was how things stood ideologically and strategically.
“On the ground,” the clashes with the Poles in 1919 were part of the military-political chaos that arose in the former western and southwestern provinces of Russia (that is, in modern Belarus and Ukraine) after the withdrawal of the German-Austrian occupation forces from there.
In this chaos, the Poles strictly followed the logic of restoring the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth within the borders of the 18th century. In 1919, they deliberately occupied Belarus, and in the spring of 1920, they launched an offensive in Ukraine.
At the end of April, they defeated the Ukrainian 1st Sich Rifle Brigade (which fought on the side of the Red Army) near Kazatin, and reached the Chernobyl-Vinnytsia-Romanian border line. Within 24 hours, without encountering resistance from the Reds, they covered 90 kilometers and on May 7, 1920, without a fight, they took Kyiv.
This was preceded by a funny episode: on May 6, Polish soldiers entered the city on a captured tram and after an on-site inspection, drove back. In the convoy, the Polish Army brought the leading ataman of the UPR army, Symon Petliura, who hastened to declare the inviolability of the Ukrainian-Polish alliance.
“The very last ones, at the end, for some reason arrived the Polish lords... with French long-range cannons... The Kievites, seasoned by experience, looked at the thick cannons and crimson edging and confidently said: “The Bolsheviks will be back soon,” Mikhail Bulgakov recalled May 1920.
The next "operetta" lasted for a month and a half. In May, the Western Front of the Red Army under the command of Tukhachevsky began an offensive in Belarus. In the first week of June, the 1st Cavalry Army of Semyon Budyonny (and its vanguard - the 14th Cavalry Division of Alexander Parkhomenko, recruited from volunteers - miners and workers of the Donbass) broke through the front in Ukraine. On June 16, the Poles were driven out of Kiev. According to Bulgakov, "in the middle of a completely cloudless sky, the Soviet cavalry rudely and casually rode somewhere where it was not needed, and the lords left the enchanted city within a few hours", having blown up three bridges across the Dnieper in the city for the last time.
THE COMMONWEALTH FOR COMRADE DZERZHINSKY
Then the front rolled to the West: on July 11, the Poles surrendered Minsk, three days later the Reds took Vilno (Vilnius). On August 1, contrary to Pilsudski's orders, the Polish Army left Brest.
Lenin declared: Soviet Russia does not lay claim to territories west of the Curzon Line, that is, the borders of the Polish ethnic group. But beyond the Curzon Line, the "correct", Soviet Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was to begin.
On July 12, Vladimir Lenin gave instructions to Joseph Stalin : “Accelerate the order to furiously intensify the offensive.”
Three days later, Ilyich sent a telegram to a member of the Revolutionary Military Council of the Western Front, the Polish Jew Józef Unshlikht, with the question: “Do you consider a Soviet coup in Poland likely and how soon?”
Unshlikht replied: it is entirely possible to create a military revolutionary committee. No sooner said than done.
In Belostok, which had been taken by the Reds, the Polrevkom was formed, and the chairman of the All-Russian Cheka, Felix Dzerzhinsky, was proclaimed its head. The core of the Polish Red Army was also being created. About 6,000 of the 18,000 ethnic Poles who were members of the RCP (b) were sent to the Western Front to Tukhachevsky and the Southwestern Front under the command of Alexander Yegorov.
The political departments of the advancing troops distributed posters with a quote from the Chairman of the Revolutionary Military Council Trotsky: "We need to wean the government of the bankrupt Polish people off playing hide-and-seek with us. Red troops, forward! Heroes, to Warsaw!" And the "Komzapfront" Tukhachevsky was already talking about a march on Weimar Berlin.
Thus, instead of returning historically Russian lands (which is still credited to Lenin), the Bolshevik Party moved on to fulfilling its main task - exporting the revolution to Europe with the aim of fanning the "world fire". This was the first mistake in the Soviet-Polish war, but it was systemic and irreparable.
The then "Euro-Atlantic alliance" - the Entente - began to help Warsaw in earnest. From March 1920, France and Britain stepped up arms supplies to the Poles. By August, Pilsudski's army had the fourth-largest number of tanks in the world.
French tanks handed over to the Poles near Dvinsk (Daugavpils)
At the same time, the Polish "chief" avoided in every way possible cooperation with the White armies in the fight against the Bolsheviks. Pilsudski "consciously sought the destruction of Russian national forces," lamented General Denikin.
On July 25, an Anglo-French military mission headed by General Maxime Weygand arrived in Warsaw and took over planning operations. In Washington, the Warren Harding administration declared Soviet Russia a "hostile state" and banned negotiations with Moscow.
But despite all the foreign support, as the French military adviser Louis Faury, who was in Warsaw, noted, by August “the strategic and moral state of the Polish troops had ominous symptoms that seemed destined to lead the country to ruin.”
HOW THE CURZON LINE DIDN'T BECOME A 'RED LINE'
On August 12, the Western Front troops went on the offensive towards Warsaw itself. According to Tukhachevsky's plan, Soviet units were to force the Vistula and take the city from the west. Just as Russian troops had acted against Polish separatists during the uprising of 1830.
By dawn on August 13, the rifle divisions had broken through the city's first line of defense. This was followed by the aforementioned breakthrough in Radzymin and Budyonny's cavalry raid to the Vistula. The Red Army advanced to the Warsaw suburbs of Jablonna and Praga (the "namesake" of the Czech capital).
On August 14, Tukhachevsky gave the order to storm. But then something went wrong. By the next morning, the Poles had recaptured Nasielsk, capturing the suburb of Ciechanów in the rear of Tukhachevsky's 4th Army. By the evening of the same day, the 4th and 15th Armies were cut off from each other.
On the night of August 18, the commander ordered a regrouping east of Warsaw, but on the same day the Poles began an offensive.
On August 19, they managed to drive the Red garrison out of Brest. On the 23rd, the "capital" of the Polish Revolutionary Committee, Bialystok, fell. By the end of the month, the front was slowed down in the Curzon Line area. But it was becoming obvious that the Poles had managed to turn the tide of the war. By October 1920, the Red Army had to retreat 300 km to the east.
The Riga Treaty of 1921 was only a logical consequence - instead of the "Polish SSR", Pilsudski had to give up territories populated by Belarusians, Ukrainians and Rusyns (as well as part of the Pskov Governorate). All of this became the "eastern outskirts" of the Second Polish Republic until 1939.
The Lenin government returned to the Poles the military trophies, all scientific and cultural values taken away since the first partition - January 1, 1772, and also pledged to pay reparations: 30 million gold rubles for the contribution of the Kingdom of Poland to the economic life of the Russian Empire and property worth 18 million gold rubles.
The last conditions, however, were not met.
WHAT WAS THAT?
The Polish historical myth holds that the “Miracle on the Vistula” was the result of national unity. This narrative was already captured in 1921 by director Ryszard Bolesławski in a silent film called Cud nad Wisłą. His colleague Jerzy Hoffman showed the same picture in a 2011 film with the same simple title, The Battle of Warsaw 1920.
Socialist politicians and agrarians raised the workers and peasants, the rightists raised the landowners, entrepreneurs and veterans of the First World War. The awakened spirit of the nation inspired the army, the church blessed everyone, and Pilsudski (who had already been awarded the rank of marshal in March 1919) exercised general leadership.
But was this the main reason for the Reds' defeat near Warsaw?
Soviet strategists really underestimated the influence of nationalist ideas and the role of the Catholic Church, which turned out to be stronger than the class interests of the proletariat. But the second mistake, after the "ideological charge", was the strategic blunders.
Firstly, the Soviet troops approached the battle exhausted by a long campaign. Having driven the Poles out of Ukraine and Belarus in the summer of 1920, the Red Army advanced 600 km towards Warsaw, stretching out communications.
The first echelons of cavalry were tired on the march and found themselves separated from the rear. There were not enough reserves at the fronts: by the beginning of the decisive battle, some divisions had only 500 men left.
Logistics were disrupted: engineering units responsible for supplies lagged behind by hundreds of kilometers, and trains with ammunition were stuck in railway "traffic jams." As a result, the fighters on the Vistula were catastrophically short of not only cartridges and shells, but also food.
On the one hand, the Western Front's task was made easier - the Poles withdrew some of their forces from the Warsaw direction and transferred them further south, against Alexander Yegorov's Southwestern Front. But on the other hand, Yegorov, developing the offensive in Galicia, broke away from Tukhachevsky. Coordinating such a broad offensive was problematic.
Problems also emerged at the “micro level”: during the battle for Warsaw, the headquarters of the 4th Army actually lost contact with the front due to problems with radio communications.
But the straw that broke the camel's back was something the Poles can actually take credit for: the spy operation.
Through agents in Minsk, Polish radio intelligence was able to intercept an order for the 16th Army of the Red Army. Breaking the code showed that it contained a directive from Tukhachevsky with instructions to the Red commanders advancing on Warsaw. Having received this information, the commander of the capital's defense, Józef Haller, gave the order to Władysław Sikorski's 5th Army (entrenched in Modlin) to strike at the junction of two Red armies, the 3rd and 15th.
This first counterattack by the Poles near Radzymin had a domino effect, given the problems listed above for the advancing Red Army, and on August 17 the Reds began to retreat.
The Polish cipher department of Lieutenant Jan Kowalewski completely controlled the Red Army's radio traffic, having the whole picture of what was happening. An entire network of radio stations was working to intercept. Plus, at a key moment, the airwaves of the Western Front headquarters were jammed, and biblical texts were continuously transmitted on the frequency of the 4th Army.
"We have been thrown back at the front so much that we have been thrown back so much that battles are taking place near Grodno, and the Poles are approaching the line under which Pilsudski used to boast that he would come to Moscow, and that remained only boasting. It must be said that despite the fact that we have been thrown back, our troops have still performed miracles," noted Lenin, speaking at the IX Conference of the RCP (b) in September 1920.
The “miracles” he mentioned did not allow Pilsudski to reach the borders of 1772. The new cordon ran along the Zbruch River in Western Ukraine and almost divided Belarus in half, passing approximately 30 kilometers from Minsk.
The mistakes of the Soviet-Polish war were taken into account during the Red Army's campaign in 1939, when our troops stopped at the border of ethnically Polish territories.
The Warsaw campaign serves as a lesson for modern strategists, reminding them that even with outstanding successes at the front, a lack of strategic caution, extended communications, problems with communications, and underestimation of the enemy can "nullify" the victories won. The gradual and therefore effective offensive in the NEVO zone shows that the lesson remains relevant today.
[ZeroHedge] George Soros turns 95 today, and for his birthday present America brought him the annihilation of his legacy.
Soros has been known for two things: making money and spending it on political influence. Over the last few years, he has handed over control of his empire to his son, Alex, and Alex seems unable to do either of those things successfully.
THE MONEY
First, Alex ruined his reputation for making money. George was once known as “the man who broke the bank of England,” famous for making $1 billion in one day by sniffing out arbitrage opportunities in currency exchange markets.
Taking control of Soros Fund Management, Alex became the man who broke the bank of Soros. In December 2021, Alex invested $2 billion to buy nearly 20 million shares of an electric vehicle company called Rivian at somewhere between $70 and $100 per share. It was one of the largest one-off investments the fund had ever made.
A year later, Rivan shares were selling for just $18 and Soros Fund Management sold at a loss of what must have been more than $1 billion. HedgeFollow, a website that tracks and ranks U.S. hedge fund performances, currently gives Soros Fund Management a performance rating of 1 out of 5 stars, making it one of the least successful in the country.
THE POLITICS
Alex is as talented at making billions vanish as George was at making them appear, but maybe he inherited some of his dad’s skill for political maneuvering and network building?
Well, no, not really.
Alex has become famous for posting photos of himself posing with Democratic politicians and liberal world leaders, but the actual influence of the George’s network seems to have been greatly diminished. Perhaps related to the massive losses on Rivian, in July 2023 Open Society Foundations announced that it would be laying off 40 percent of its staff worldwide, halting all new grants until February 2024, and completely changing its operating model. What had once been an international network of influence peddling was slashed to the bone.
The crowning achievement of the Open Society Network under Alex so far was the passage of the so-called Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). Open Society staffers, such as Tom Perriello, were so involved in pushing the legislation that Open Society Policy Center briefly re-opened lobbying operations and became one of the top lobbying spenders in the nation. Perriello was on the floor of the House when the bill was passed. (Capital Research Center has written at length on Soros’ involvement in the IRA. The research can be found here.)
Billions of dollars for EV chargers (that never got built) and billions more for EV tax credits were crammed into to the bill, seemingly the perfect bandage for Rivian’s revenue troubles. The IRA even allocated $3 billion for purchasing electric delivery trucks for the postal service, and Rivian is one of the biggest producers of electric delivery vans. But, despite the EV subsidies and green energy handouts, the bill came too little and too late to save Soros’ investment in Rivian.
This period coincided with another of Alex’s big political maneuvers: Spending at least $4 million on Stacey Abrams’s failed gubernatorial campaign in Georgia. During that time, Rivian was starting to build a “giga-factory” outside of Atlanta and, most importantly, asking the state government for subsidies. In the eleventh hour of the Biden administration, Rivian was also awarded $6.5 billion loan for the factory from the Department of Energy. Construction on the factory has yet to even start, and Rivian stock currently trades at less than $12 per share.
THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE SOROS DA’S
George’s most notable political achievement, one so famous that his name was used to coin the term for it, was the funding of the “Soros DAs.”
One of George’s goals for decades has been to end of the War on Drugs and implement a total overhaul of the American criminal justice system. To that end, he has funded soft-on-crime think tanks and pro-legalization ballot initiatives.
And then, in a showcase of the financial genius that made him a billionaire, George spotted a political arbitrage opportunity. He realized his immense fortune could make an outsized impact if he supported soft-on-crime politicians running to become local prosecutors and district attorneys.
A lot of them won. And then, “Soros DA” became a political lightning rod as soaring murder and violent crime rates followed behind George’s donations.
Coupled with the “reforms” and defunding of the police that were popularized during the summer of 2020, the Soros DA became a nationwide blight on urban areas. While left-leaning pundits, researchers, and think tanks, frequently funded by Soros, tried to explain away the spike in crime and blame it on the pandemic, guns, or economic hardship, Americans grew more discontented with the “reform” they had been promised.
Today, more than a dozen Soros DA’s have been removed from office by recalls, scandals, or simply not seeking re-election. And the spike in urban crime ended up being a key factor for the Democratic Party’s defeat in 2024.
The demise of the Soros DA is more than a rejection of Soros’ legacy on criminal justice policy. It was also a rejection of his legacy on immigration. As one might guess from a name like “Open Society,” Soros is a proponent of open borders. One reason Soros began funding DAs in 2016 was to create “sanctuary cities” that would be the heart of the so-called “resistance.”
The second election of Donald Trump—in a race where crime, immigration, and the IRA were three of the major issues—was America’s personal slap to George Soros’ face. Today, on his 95th birthday, his legacy is in shambles.
#5
So called "conspiracy theories" or ideas and notions if you will, have frequently become the wellspring of facts. The process of healthy discussion should not be hindered.
#7
Conspiracy theories will thrive as long as the government is less than forthcoming about major events in our country and the mainstream media keeps lying about it. We may not know what they're hiding but we know they're hiding something and it's only natural for our imaginations to fill in the blanks.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
08/14/2025 12:31 Comments ||
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What was the cost of 10/23? What cost another 10/23? This is not a war of choice, Mr. Economics Professor Dude.
[IsraelTimes] Military costs, aid for the enclave’s civilian population, plus global divestment may raise debt and lower quality of life for Israelis, says Hebrew U’s Prof. Esteban Klor
The recently approved plan to conquer the densely populated Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with a rusty iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response... City will likely come at a hefty price to Israel’s economy and its residents’ quality of life, according to an economist at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.
The current plan to expand the nearly two-year-old conflict — which could eventually include a full takeover of the Gaza Strip — already faces widespread condemnation from the international community and is opposed by much of Israel’s general public.
But if Israel chooses to move ahead with the Gaza City plan, it could also cost an estimated NIS 100 billion ($29.2 billion) — five percent of the country’s GDP — said Esteban Klor, a professor of economics at the Hebrew University. This sum includes ballooning military expenditures, as well as a toll on civilian spending and a potential significant curb on investments and exports, he noted.
"If Israel takes full control of Gaza City, not only will Israel have to face direct costs, but there are also indirect costs related to trade boycotts of Israeli companies," Klor told The Times of Israel.
"I’m very concerned about that possibility, and I don’t think that the Israeli economy can sustain such a huge blow for a continuous period of time," he said.
Over the past 22 months, Israel has faced the longest and most intense war in its history, battling the Hamas ..a contraction of the Arabic words for "frothing at the mouth",... terror group in addition to military engagements with Iran ...a theocratic Shiite state divided among the Medes, the Persians, and the (Arab) Elamites. Formerly a fairly civilized nation ruled by a Shah, it became a victim of Islamic revolution in 1979. The nation is today noted for spontaneously taking over other countries' embassies, maintaining whorehouses run by clergymen, involvement in international drug trafficking, and financing sock puppet militias to extend the regime's influence. The word Iran is a cognate form of Aryan. The abbreviation IRGC is the same idea as Stürmabteilung (or SA). The term Supreme Guide is a the modern version form of either Duce or Führer or maybe both. They hate JewsZionists Jews. Their economy is based on the production of oil and vitriol... and its regional proxies. The multifront conflict has thus far cost some NIS 300 billion ($88.5 billion), a figure that has sharply increased government borrowing and the country’s debt burden.
The military mobilized hundreds of thousands of reserve soldiers with the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war following the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led onslaught, which saw some 1,200 people in southern Israel slaughtered and 251 kidnapped to the Gaza Strip.
Many reservists have remained in uniform for months throughout the conflict, with only short breaks to see their families and check in at work. The resulting absence of personnel in the employment sector, a major growth engine of the Israeli economy, has disrupted operations — especially of smaller firms — and impaired their ability to raise funding.
Klor, a senior researcher at Israel’s Institute for National Security Studies, estimated that the initial price tag of conquering Gaza City would be somewhere between NIS 25 billion ($7.4 billion) and NIS 50 billion ($14.8 billion), including the costs of mobilizing reserve soldiers, and relocating and supplying the basic needs of a large portion of Gaza’s civilian population.
"It’s going to be very costly for the Israeli economy, but the extent of the cost depends on the actual operation that the army will carry out and how many troops, including reserve soldiers, will be needed and for how long, which is still not clear," said Klor. "Israel may conquer Gaza in three months, but to relocate about 1 million people, Israel will probably have to provide tents and continue to supply basic humanitarian needs, including the provision of food, health services, water, and electricity."
Absorbing the high military and civilian costs of the new Gaza plan is going to force the government to make tough choices, including either raising taxes or cutting social services such as education, health, and infrastructure, he said.
The new offensive and maintaining security control and civilian governance over the Gaza Strip, potentially for five months or longer, would impose military and financial costs at a particularly challenging time for Israel’s strained state budget and high deficit in an economy challenged by war.
"This new round of fighting in Gaza was not included in the 2025 budget, and there are no reserves there," said Klor. "Israel will have to absorb these expenses either by further raising taxes or by an increase in the deficit, which is the more likely option before an electoral year."
BORROWING FROM TOMORROW
Israel financed the ongoing war by borrowing and increasing its debt. The country’s debt-to-GDP ratio has soared from about 60% before the war to about 70%. Just servicing the debt, Israel is paying close to NIS 60 billion ($17.7 billion) in interest annually, said Klor.
"It would not be surprising if intensified fighting in Gaza leads to further downgrades in Israel’s credit rating, which means that we will have to pay even higher interest rates on our increased debt," said Klor. "Every shekel that Israel pays in interest rates is a shekel that the state can’t invest in education, improving roads, building more hospitals, or lowering taxes."
"Basically, a downgrade in the Israeli rating means our quality of life is going down," he warned.
A lower rating also raises credit costs for businesses and households when financing mortgages or loans. In September, global rating agency Moody’s cut Israel’s credit score by two levels from A2 to Baa1, citing the "diminished quality of Israel’s institutions and governance" in their ability to manage state finances, as well as increased spending needs during the war period.
In July, the rating agency maintained a negative outlook on Israel’s rating, leaving the door open for further rating cuts as it warned about higher defense spending and weaker prospects of government finances and economic growth.
The economy bounced back at the start of 2024 following a 20.8% contraction in the last quarter of 2023 as the outbreak of war with Hamas sharply curtailed consumer spending, trade, and investment. Last year, the economy grew by around 1%, down from 1.8% in 2023 and 6.3% in 2022, before the hostilities.
Moody’s projected that Israel’s economy would grow by 2% in 2025 and by 4.5% in 2026. The forecast is lower than the revised projection by the Bank of Israel for GDP growth of 3.3% in 2025 and 4.6% in 2026.
Earlier this month, the Finance Ministry cut its 2025 growth forecast for the economy from 3.6% to 3.1%, on the assumption that the intensity of fighting in Gaza will continue only until the end of September.
"The new Gaza war plan will delay allowing the economy to get back on track and onto a path of recovery, after almost two years of war," Klor cautioned.
ANOTHER BLOW AGAINST PUBLIC OPINION
Even more worrying, the move is feared to fuel negative sentiment among businesses unwilling to trade with Israeli companies and investors not wanting to invest in the country. Norway’s $2 trillion sovereign wealth fund, the world’s largest, said on Monday it plans to divest from more Israeli companies as part of its ongoing review of investments in the country over the situation in Gaza and the West Bank.
Extra unplanned trade and investment losses, plus the military’s initial outlay of up to NIS 50 billion to conquer Gaza City, push up Klor’s estimated price tag to NIS 100 billion.
"Especially in Europe, which is one of Israel’s main trading partners, we could see more calls for sanctions against Israeli companies and divestments," said Klor. "Even a silent boycott or sanctioning of Israeli companies could lead to lowering GDP by two or three percentage points, or extra losses of NIS 60 billion."
"That’s very significant and could be the start of a snowball process where people leave the country because they can’t do business from Israel and set up elsewhere. I hope that we don’t reach that point," he said.
At first glance it looks like the sale would add $2.5 billion or 2.5% to Israel’s economy in the year the sale was completed (negotiations take time, I know). But if so, then the Innovation Nation would just need one more such deal to make up the war losses. And Israel has loads of these deals being worked — European companies in particular are keen to buy the innovation they don’t develop at home, even as they plan elaborate anti-Israel boycotts full of moral preening.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[ZeroHedge] George Soros turns 95 today, and for his birthday present America brought him the annihilation of his legacy.
..a contraction of the Arabic words for "frothing at the mouth",...
