> In an unprecedented move, according to two of the sources, the army also decided during the first weeks of the war that, for every junior Hamas operative that Lavender marked, it was permissible to kill up to 15 or 20 civilians
I haven't been putting much faith in numbers coming out of the region since Oct. Anyone capable of giving an accurate number is invested enough to be deeply biased in some direction. Well researched sources such as this one are directionally correct. But, you can't blame me for being suspicious of a magazine I just heard of.
> collateral damage of XYZ civilians is accepted
This is an operational decision. Even if the militants were identified by hand, the acceptable collateral was a decision made by some commander. I'm not sure how 'Lavender' (The central topic of this thread) affects this.
One argument is that 'the risk of technology' and 'the risk of how technology makes humans behave' are one and the same.
The article directionally points towards a Hanlon's Razor-esque disregard towards the shortcomings of Lavender. Any time people's lives are at stake, the bar needs to be sky-high. An intelligence operative will be trained to sniff out a fake-informant or a fake-asset from experience. They do not have the same intuitions for a statistical machine, and are likelier to ignore egde-cases, with disastrous outcomes. Some might think this is because 'Lavender coaxes them into doing it'. I believe 'humans are smart enough to know what they're getting into'.
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All this being said, I repeat my earlier statement. We in the west have not seen real-war. We're applying civilian sensibilities to a situation where century long struggles have now morphed into full blown existential hatred among neighbors. US 'missions' in the middle east don't count, because they are fake wars. The US had nothing at stake. One fine day it randomly pulled out of Afghanistan and it affected the life of exactly 'zero' Americans. That's not war, that's military adventurism. The US has only ever sniffed risk 3 times in its existence. Pearl Harbor, WTC & Cuban missle crisis. Look at how it reacted in the immediate after-math of all 3, and you'll know the real face of 'American military'. Every thing else is PR and civilians happily drink the koolaid. (Here on out America = Pax Americana)
Coming back to 'real war'. What are the sensibilities of war when war is real? The price of human life is clearly not the same as peace-time. What collateral damage are Ukraine & Russia accepting as parts of their war? Look at the sheer number of deaths in recent wars/insurgencies [1]. These are mostly civilian deaths. The obvious question is - "If war is always bloody, why is everyone so caught up with this war in particular"?
That's because, Israel is unique in that it is a "western nation" engaging in war post-WW2. Western nations don't fight wars. They settled all neighborhood debates through the bloodiest wars of the 20th century. And foreign risks are crushed through NATO/American military superiority, before they ever gain momentum.
Lavendar and the Israeli military appears to place a low-value on human place. But, is this value lower than other peer-wars, or are we imposing civilian sensibilities onto war time ? I don't know. But, I dislike the hand-wavy confidence with which people choose an answer for this question.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_by_death_toll#Mod...