> You have to hand it to them -- it's a clever strategy with minimal casualties outside of your enemy
I agree it’s clever, but there are reports now of thousands wounded. Feels like a lot of collateral risk, if these people who were targeted were out and about (grocery shopping, bank, etc.)
I have no doubt that innocent civilians have been injured. But it's also worth noting that there are thousands of Hezbollah members, so the number alone doesn't necessarily tell us much about the number of civilians injured. (Similar to the casualty figures that come out of Gaza.)
I hate the idea of any innocent civilian being injured. But it might also be instructive to consider the alternative: if Israel wanted to achieve similar results via a conventional war against Hezbollah, it seems virtually guaranteed that far more innocent people would have been injured and killed—not to mention the Israeli civilians on the other side, whose lives also matter.
> if Israel wanted to achieve similar results via a conventional war against Hezbollah, it seems virtually guaranteed that far more innocent people would have been injured and killed
"It's OK that Israel causes excessive amounts of civilian casualties, because in the alternative scenario Israel would also cause excessive amounts of civilian casualties"
I don't find it very persuasive to simply assume that the casualties are "excessive." Whether they are actually excessive is really the whole issue. As of right now, there is no strong evidence that I'm aware of that the injuries from today's attack are "excessive" much less those of a different purely hypothetical attack.
And even then: to judge whether casualties are excessive requires an understanding of the goal to be achieved, which is almost completely absent from this discussion.
I think the problem many people have is that Israel's goals entirely revolve around killing people.
That is: If your goal is to murder someone, and you accidentally kill an innocent bystander in committing that murder, the number of civilians killed is infinitely too high. The number of acceptable total deaths is 0.
I understand this is idealistic. But it's the judgement many will choose to make. For the record, no I don't only think it's bad when Israel murders people.
I don’t understand. It seems clear enough to me that Israel’s goal is to prevent Hezbollah from continuing to launch rockets at Israeli towns in the north. Killing is a means to that end. One may disagree with that choice of means, but I don’t see how you can claim that “Israel’s goals entirely revolve around killing people.”
That being said, you might think that killing is never an appropriate means of achieving anything. If so, fair enough. But I think that’s a tough position to maintain when you are actively under attack.
I think Israel consists of quite different people with different goals.
Some of them have the goal, to own all of the land, because they believe it is their religious duty - and some of them are indeed part of the government.
And some of them just want to live in peace.
And on the other side it seems quite similar to me. Probably with a higher percentage of ruthless killers, but desperation tend to make people ruthless.
It really isn't a simple conflict that can be solved with more killing, unless we are talking about genocidal levels of killings.
> It seems clear enough to me that Israel’s goal is to prevent Hezbollah from continuing to launch rockets at Israeli towns in the north. Killing is a means to that end. One may disagree with that choice of means, but I don’t see how you can claim that “Israel’s goals entirely revolve around killing people.”
Well, let me start with the necessary disclaimer: First, I'm not an expert on geopolitics or Israel or the ME. That's probably obvious. It could be that my coarse understanding is just completely wrong, but I think it's a broadly correct picture which is lacking lots of detail.
I also don't know much about the conflict with Hezbollah specifically, but what I see from Israel tells me that the prevention of rocket smay not be their top goal. I also believe that even if it is, killing is a means that I disagree with!
The rhetoric I hear about Hamas (not Hezbollah, so it may be different there, but I suspect it's not substantially so) from the Netanyahu administration is about murder. Protecting Israelis is a means to an end; the end goal is to kill every single member of Hamas (and, reading between the lines, the expulsion of all Palestinians). It's widely reported that many Israelis openly feel Netanyahu is not making meaningful efforts to recover hostages, and I've also understood that significant lapses in Israeli security were what made the Oct 7 attack last year possible. Meanwhile, some of the things Netanyahu says about Hamas and Palestine sounds genocidal, frankly.
Again, could be wrong about all that. Every word on the subject is biased in one way or another. Additionally, I know very little of the situation with Hezbollah, so I'm extrapolating: The prioritization of murder over safety that I see in the war with Hamas demonstrates to me that Israel is not making choices in the utmost interest of safety, generally, if the murder of its enemies is on the table.
Of course, I'll also reiterate that even if all of the above is wrong, their means are unacceptable to me: I don't believe one of the most powerful nations on the planet needs to murder its impoverished neighbors to keep itself safe. It's much easier than diplomatic and nonlethal approaches, yes; but I don't think it's necessary.
Thanks for the thorough explanation. I think there are two things worth adding to your picture that distinguish Hezbollah from Hamas.
The first is that about 60,000 Israelis are currently displaced because they lived in a zone that Hezbollah is targeting with rocket attacks. (Which, FWIW, appear to intentionally target civilians.) Many of them have been living in hotels for nearly a year. Just yesterday, the Israeli cabinet updated its official war goals to include allowing residents to return to their homes in the north. What I hear is that this is now an issue roughly on par with returning the hostages from Gaza in terms of its salience within Israel.
The second is that Hezbollah is far more powerful than Hamas ever was. Unlike Hamas, I think Israel must recognize that elimination of Hezbollah is not a realistic aim.
At some point you have to ignore these perspectives because they are wrong. Look into the founding of Hezbollah. It isn't a secret, their stated goals is to expulse Jews. It cannot get much more plain as that.
Yeah, that's exactly what I'm saying. Israel is one of the most powerful nations on Earth, Hezbollah is not even close. I don't think genocide is an appropriate response to the hatred of a much, much weaker enemy.
Hezbollah is a militia and has more manpower and equipment than the Lebanese army. They get high tech supplies from allies like Iran and they have more military power than a lot of the surrounding countries, who also fear them for that reason.
They aren't a civilian force and they are a serious military threat, especially with the backing of Iran.
Sorry, I meant that I don't believe they are, but I believe they would if it became opportune. And I'm not aware of any indication otherwise; it can be assumed they would choose against it, but I don't make that assumption.
The right number? Zero. An acceptable number to help stop Hezbollah from routinely firing rockets at your northern towns and villages? That’s a harder question. Unfortunately, the hard question is the one that’s relevant.
Why isn't it better to cause fewer civilian casualties &/or those of lesser severity than a shooting fight or missile attack?[1] Given the situation has already degenerated to its current state where fighting is the status quo and all options lead to innocent casualties then minimizing those is the horrible "OK" option. Not okay in the sense of desirable, not okay in the sense that things should never have degenerate to this level to begin with, only okay as the less horrible option.
[1] Videos show the explosions highly limited in their ability to cause injuries as bad as a bullet to anyone ever a foot or two away from the explosions, much less than I would expect from anything more conventional.
Israel isn't causing any civilian casualties in South Lebanon. Hezbollah declaring war on Israel by firing rockets onto civilian areas since the 8th of October caused them.
my family was evacuated due to incessant rocket fire in the golan heights, hezzbollah has been firing indiscriminately since 10/8 do you have any alternative?
I agree that the framing is tendentious (though not necessarily false). But I don't think much actually hinges on that. The point is still worth considering even if it's just a "war" rather than "war on terrorists." The linked article is a study on wars in general, not just wars "on terror."
I doubt that's what GP meant, and I don't think one has to think either of those things to not buy into the "war on terrorism" rhetoric that is used to excuse all sorts of atrocities.
Kind of an odd thing to say in a conversation with a bunch of other people who clearly care what is right and wrong.
> 400 years ago you'd have owned slaves and not think twice about it.
An oversimplification, to say the least! This is only even a little bit true if we limit ourselves to the small number of nations with chattel slavery (but why would we do that?), and actually not even true of Americans, many of whom were opposed to slavery even 400 years ago.
It seems like you're making a big, unjustified leap from: "people don't always do the right thing" to "right and wrong don't matter and are not worth discussing."
Edit:
OK, I'll unpack: your points about Foxconn and modern-day slavery don't seem to establish anything other than that people don't always act according to their moral judgments. But that doesn't demonstrate that right or wrong don't matter and are not worth being discussed. (Or, in your words: "Who cares what is right or wrong?") For one thing, moral judgments could have attenuated, but still significant, effect on peoples' behavior. Or, it could be worth discussing for reasons other than its effect on peoples behavior.
I hoped it would be understood that the quotation marks aren't intended to be interpreted as literally quoting your statements but, rather, are just a way of referring to two different propositions, the first of which is the one actually supported by the evidence that you cite and the latter of which seems to be the one you're espousing.
If I've misunderstood your argument here, please feel free to explain how. I certainly don't intend to straw-man anything. But if you'd rather do something else with your brief precious time on earth besides arguing with a stranger on the internet, I respect that decision!
Hezbollah is of course not a country (though they're a proxy for Iran), but they occupy parts of Lebanon, so you can't attack them without attacking Lebanon.
I wonder if people are unaware that Hezbollah and Israel have been shooting rockets at each other for months. There are roughly 1000 deaths in the conflict and hundreds of thousands of civilians evacuated. If we’re talking about harms to civilians, this incident is probably small compared to the war overall.
These are Hezbollah pagers and Hezbollah only exists to terrorize Israel and it is their sole purpose. Of course there is still a danger of collateral risk, but I don't think it can get much more targeted.
"Hezbollah only exists to terrorise Israel and it is their sole purpose." This is a very curious take, what makes you think a group of hundreds of thousands of people, investing so much time, efforts and resources, exposing themselves and their loved ones to fatal risks just to terrorise Israel?
> According to Hezbollah's Deputy-General, Naim Qassem, the struggle against Israel is a core belief of Hezbollah and the central rationale of Hezbollah's existence.
I tend to believe their own statement on this matter. Where do you see wiggle room for another argument? Or even to find the argument "curious"? What is curious about it?
Only on HN, “This is curious. Why would people do an irrational thing similar to the irrational things that people have done for the entirety of human existence?”
Looks like Lebanese civilians have indeed been injured/maimed; but it appears cool to some since it is an "impressive supply-chain hack", so let's leave it at that and not call it terrorism.
You could've labeled it terrorism had Lebanon and Israel weren't at war with each other over the past 12 months, and had the people carrying those devices were random uninvolved civilians.
If you were to consider the fact that Hezbollah has been shelling Israeli cities and civilians on a daily basis for the past 12 months (killing many, also children, and driving hundreds of thousands of people out of their homes), with the UN peacekeeping force failing to keep Hezbollah north of the Litani river - then perhaps you would understand that this is likely as close as you can get to a "precision strike" on an enemy you're at war with.
This may in-fact be the most precise military strike on an enemy paramilitary group in the history of modern warfare.
You either have a very unrealistic idea of what a war actually looks like (0% civilians casualties or injuries), or an agenda.
The unfortunate thing is that regardless of politics, this will be seen as further escalation that ratchets up the risk of greater regional conflict. All wars eventually end, its just a question of how long, and how much death (both militarily and civilian) will be endured by everyone in the region. I hope there are diplomatic possibilities to de-escalate, but it seems those windows are closing.
Fair enough, and thanks for being open about this. With this in mind, all I can say is that your original comment is based on 100% emotion and 0% analysis and rationality.
I certainly agree that war, as experienced by humans on all sides of a conflict, is a form of terror.
That's a simple emotional argument that everybody can relate to.
It doesn't touch on the realities of war, especially a war that was forced on one side by another (which is the case here, with Hezbollah willingly deciding to shell and bomb Israel on a daily basis for the past 12 months, despite Israel not waging any war on Lebanon).
Terrorism definition is independent of whether there is ongoing war or not, lets not divert the subject with simple whataboutism.
We all know what happened, on both sides, including deaths of tens of thousands of civilians including thousands of palestinian children who did fuck nothing to anybody, just were born at bad place at bad time.
What would be enough kill ratio israeli : palestinian civilian, or even better israeli civilian : palestinian kid/baby that would satiate Israeli government to stop the war? Very conservative estimates put deaths of direct US invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq to around 500k, meaning its 500:3 ratio and factual defeat of US army to withdraw and cut losses. So thats the threshold of civilized western world? Israel already surpassed that long time ago.
They can't and won't win with Hamas and they know it, its exactly same situation as Taliban, ISIS etc. Regroup, strike back, stronger, smarter, better equipped, more motivated. Spiral of death can go on and on till there is nobody standing on neither side.
If I had to choose where the next nuclear detonation happens it would be for me 50:50 Ukraine : Israel, and this is how you get there.
> It’s a mistake not to acknowledge civilian casualties, and not to feel sorrow and even anger.
I agree with you 100%, it's important to acknowledge civilian casualties. Many uninvolved Lebanese people don't want a war with Israel, and they don't deserve any of this. I truly feel very sorry for those people and I wish they would never have had to go through this.
But at the same time, we can't let emotions alone dictate everything.
There's a murderous paramilitary death cult operating from within the Lebanese territory that uses Lebanon for all its territory and resources to kill as many Jewish people (and non-Jews, as demonstrated recently with the missile attack that killed 10 Druze children in a football game) as possible and erase Israel. They don't care about your feelings, or who their victims are. They'll gladly kidnap and murder civilians, children, elderly - as long as they are an Israeli. It's truly tragic, but there really aren't too many ways out of this.
do you realize that nurses in hospital, civil servants workers are among people carrying this device? That not all, not even majority of Hizbollah personnel have no military responsibility whatsoever?
There's absolutely no reason for uninvolved, random and peaceful civilians to be carrying a classified wartime-ready pager issued by a paramilitary terrorist organization. If you were carrying the device you're either Hezbollah, or cooperating with them - which makes you a legitimate military target.
Israel has given Lebanon and Hezbollah enough ultimatums to stop the aggressions. This is what happens when diplomacy fails.
But we already have videos of people standing in very close proximity to the devices being detonated - and not getting hurt. In-fact, many of the people carrying the device in their pockets ended up not sustaining life-threatening injuries.
I'm not saying civilians weren't hurt by this. But I'm also saying that no war has 0% civilian casualties. Those two countries are at war with each other.
This war is about Hezbollah and Hamas shelling civilians in Israel. Like hundreds of rockets per night. If, to stop that, it may harm a few civilians who are waiting next to Hezbollah members,
…you would let people keep shelling civilians by hundreds and hundreds of rockets?
How do you choose your actions, do you always support the guys who cause the maximum deaths? How does it work, “indiscriminate damage” is as soon as a person is inconvenienced while they were holding Hezbollah’s grocery bags? Shouldn’t they … distance themselves?
Pun unintended. But it’s a very good question. Shouldn’t they distance themselves from active murderers?
This won't do anything meaningful to reduce civilian deaths. Less than 0.1% of Lebanon injured, and 10x that number now even more enraged. Not meaningfully repeatable either, won't create significant attrition
The massive disruption of Hezbollah's communication network may cripple them enough to shorten the duration of the conflict, and possibly help turn public sentiment from Lebonese civilians into pressure to find a way to end things. The civilians are the people who on average do not feel strongly enough to fight, and may have large number pissed that a group-- even if they believe in its cause-- has brought violence to their communities through a surprise attack against a more powerful enemy. More than half of the Lebonese population believe there is no military solution to the overall dispute: https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/shadow-h...
> …you would let people keep shelling civilians by hundreds and hundreds of rockets?
I said no such thing though do find it interesting that any questioning of the methods used by one party is interpreted as blanket acceptance of all methods used by the other.
> Pun unintended. But it’s a very good question. Shouldn’t they distance themselves from active murderers?
How could they possibly know? I’ve never been in line for a sandwich and thought to ask if the person in front of me might spontaneously explode.
If they were truly indiscriminate and and indifferent to collateral damage, there are far easier and more effective ways to kill a few dozen people in Lebanon.
The whole complex and contrived attack speaks of tying to minimize collateral damage.
All available evidence suggests there's nothing "classified" or "wartime ready" about these - they were your basic, cheap, totally unencrypted POCSAG/Flex pager. The same as any other pager carried by doctors and all the other people who use them - aside from the hidden explosives, of course.
I doubt that was the case for these specifically hacked and weaponized devices. The operation appears to be ingenious and precisely layered in design. It very specifically targeted a group of people who were first convinced to ditch their mobile devices because they were hackable by Israel. Then the target group was provided the weaponized devices. They were bulk triggered at a specific moment of time. The weaponized device (while certainly lethal in some cases) was seemingly designed to maim and minimize damage beyond the person holding the device. And… perhaps most importantly, they were expected to be kept in a front pocket increasing the likelihood of physically emasculating the target group. It’s the ultimate “you don’t want to fuck with us”.
Violence has been probably the biggest driver of innovation for us as a species. I would categorize thousands of weapons as "cool" viewed dispassionately. Aircraft carriers, Fighter Jets, Cruise missiles. They are all definitely cool when viewed from afar.
Which they would probably agree to. Purists do not care for practical matters such arbitrating what would be the best course of action in order to have the less casualties because for them the only acceptable number of casualties is zero because any war and casualty is immoral.
I have sympathy for this kind of reasoning because it's been mine for a long time. There is something important for the preservation of the self in refusing all kinds of wrong in the world. The problem is that by refusing to engage with the world, they can affect nothing (and probably accept that, everybody should just stop being immoral, that's easy in their mind)
I agree it’s clever, but there are reports now of thousands wounded. Feels like a lot of collateral risk, if these people who were targeted were out and about (grocery shopping, bank, etc.)