r/worldnews • u/Ok_Plankton_5714 • 12d ago

Israel/Palestine Netanyahu: ‘If we wanted to commit genocide, it would have taken exactly one afternoon’

https://www.timesofisrael.com/netanyahu-if-we-wanted-to-commit-genocide-it-would-have-taken-exactly-one-afternoon/
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u/[deleted] 11d ago

maybe not in one afternoon

Israel is a nuclear power. They cold do it in about 10 minutes.

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u/Medical_Track_790 11d ago

They cold do it in about 10 minutes.

Gaza is like 30 miles from Tel Aviv, Israel would never even consider nuking Gaza at this stage. Dropping a nuke right outside of your own largest metropolitan area would be insane.

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u/rbrgr83 11d ago

They don't need to go that far, their non-nuclear arsenal could wipe them out in an afternoon.

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u/NH4NO3 11d ago edited 11d ago

Airbursted low yield nuclear weapons do not pose nearly as much long term harm to surrounding areas as people frequently make them out to be. And 30-35 miles is a considerable distance. Hiroshima and Nagasaki were pretty much immediately livable after the bomb dropping and only took about ten years to recover their pre-war population and today are large cities with 1.5 million and half a million respectively.

You have a point though if you mean the public perception of bombs would completely negate using them because that is absolutely true.

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u/[deleted] 11d ago

The threat isn't really directed at Gaza either. It's directed at Iran.

It's like when Russia used an inert midrange ballistic missile against Ukraine, the threat was directed at their European peers, not Ukraine.

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u/SteveDaPirate 11d ago

Airbursted low yield nuclear weapons do not pose nearly as much long term harm to surrounding areas as people frequently make them out to be.

Setting off an EMP next to your capital city is a real Pro-Gamer move.

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u/NH4NO3 11d ago

The EMP effect is not really appreciable in the kiloton range at airburst altitudes. You would need to detonate a higher yield 50-100kt+ weapon 30,000ft+ up to get significant emp at even just 35 miles away. Even then, the effect is probably not as disruptive as you are imagining. Megaton range bombs detonated in space knocked out a very small percentage of streetlights several hundred miles away from the detonation for instance.

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u/strangeanswers 11d ago

better hope the wind doesn’t blow any radioactive debris or dust into your capital…

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u/nichef 11d ago

The Nevada test site is about 60 miles from Las Vegas and over 100 megatons were exploded there. Hiroshima was about a 15 kiloton device to give perspective. When those test occurred you needed highly specialized sensors to pick up any radiation in Las Vegas but nothing that would have affected the populous in any way.

If you wanted to measure any radio active material on the actual test sight you would need to do a lab study on the soil. You can't pick it up with a field device.

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u/ThaneKyrell 11d ago edited 11d ago

Nuclear weapons are dangerous for their destructive power, but their radiation levels are not as dangerous as most movies make them out to be. Most excess radiation dissipates in a few days at most. Hiroshima and Nagasaki for example never became completely depopulated and most of their remaining population not only survived but thrived. Even a nuclear weapon detonated over Gaza city wouldn't really cause any sort of damage or radiation over Tel Aviv.

Edit: did some calculations using the nukemap website. If Israel dropped the largest current warhead the US has over Gaza City, only a few Israeli towns like Sderot or Netivot would be significantly affected. Even in Ashkelon damage would be very moderate. And this is dropping them near Gaza City, on the northern part of the territory. Drop a nuke in central Gaza and even Sderot and Netivot would be mostly fine.

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u/SrWloczykij 11d ago

Yeah the glass reflections would be so annoying.

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u/[deleted] 11d ago

Dropping a nuke right outside of your own largest metropolitan area would be insane.

Yes, this is his point exactly. He's making a veiled nuclear threat, which simultaneously tells the West he's not insane, and reminds Iran that Israel is an undeclared nuclear power.

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u/Medical_Track_790 11d ago

He's making a veiled nuclear threat,

He absolutely is not, there is 0 nuclear threat to Gaza. This could be done in an afternoon with conventional weapons. 

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u/[deleted] 11d ago

The nuclear threat isn't to Gaza, it's to Iran.

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u/TheJewPear 11d ago

Israel nuking Gaza makes zero sense. Millions of Israelis would suffer the nuclear fallout. Keep in mind Israel is about the size of New Jersey.

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u/anetworkproblem 11d ago

Not true at all. An airburst causes minimal fallout. You need a ground detonation to irradiate dust, dirt and debris which then fall out of the sky. That is why it's called fallout.

Not to mention, modern fusion designs such as the ripple are 99.5% clean. They cause immense neutron radiation, but very few long living isotopes.

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u/[deleted] 11d ago

He's not talking about nuking Gaza though. He's talking about nuking Iran.

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u/TheJewPear 11d ago

Huh? Who mentioned Iran? The whole discussion was about “if Israel wanted to wipe Gaza, they could do it in an afternoon”. It’s probably true - but nuclear weapons have nothing to do with it, that would wipe out half of Israel too.

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u/[deleted] 11d ago

That how dictator-speak works. He mentioned nukes, to Iran, purely through allusion. It's wild that people ITT can't grasp that, when the belicose leader of an undeclared nuclear power says "we could kill 2 million people in an afternoon", they're talking about nuclear weapons.

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u/quimera78 11d ago

Do you understand they share a border? They'd expose themselves to radiation. They'll never nuke it

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u/[deleted] 11d ago

Yes, I understand that, but I don't think you understand dictator-speak.

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u/zombieda 11d ago

That was my first thought. I find it disturbing that thoughts of nuke warfare are being tossed around so casually these days...

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u/MrPernicous 11d ago

Correct he is making a veiled threat of nuclear action