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How Israel’s bulky pager fooled Hezbollah

reuters.com

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Re: How Israel’s bulky pager fooled Hezbollah

#131

Post by jjfoooo4 »

arp242 wrote: post #113
tptacek wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So --- and I think this is take that pisses off both sides of this conflict --- I really don't think moral struggles or the definition of "terrorism" is at all illuminating in this conflict. Both sides deploy the term to discredit the other; in neither case does it matter. Two important things to understand about Hezbollah are that is the dominant military power in Lebanon, and that is directly supplied, enabled, and…

> I really don't think moral struggles or the definition of "terrorism" is at all illuminating in this conflict Yes, I fully agree. To be blunt, it's boring semantic wank. No one is here is an angel. Everyone has serious legitimate grievances and no one is smelling of roses. This should be obvious to anyone who isn't a hyper-partisan. But that doesn't mean we can't say all of this could have been avoided if Israel ha…

Is there really cause to believe a peaceful compromise would have been possible even without the settlements? Has there been any period where the borders between Israel and its neighbors have been peacefully respected by both sides?

Re: How Israel’s bulky pager fooled Hezbollah

#132

Post by xfax »

arp242 wrote: post #85
tptacek wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These takes are problematic because it's clear to most observers that the attacks were, by the standards set by ground combat in Fallujah, NATO air operations in Kunar Province, or operations against ISIL in Inherent Resolve, the pager/radio attacks were drastically more discriminating, and caused a tiny fraction of the noncombatant casualties. This, of course, is also a distorted standard capturing only NATO/aligned…

I think the bit that this misses is that the root of all the problems we've seen over the last few decades is that Israel keeps doing their settlement thing. In spite of decades of pretty much the entire rest of the world – including the US – saying they should not be doing that. I don't approve of Hezbollah or Hamas; but if you strip away the violence and Islamic extremism and all of that then the uncomfortable real…

It’s refreshing to hear from someone else what I’ve been thinking and saying for a while now.

This perspective is conspicuously missing from all narrative you hear and read in the media, as well as the administration. The gaslighting is hard to ignore.

Re: How Israel’s bulky pager fooled Hezbollah

#133

Post by tptacek »

jjfoooo4 wrote: post #131
arp242 wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I really don't think moral struggles or the definition of "terrorism" is at all illuminating in this conflict Yes, I fully agree. To be blunt, it's boring semantic wank. No one is here is an angel. Everyone has serious legitimate grievances and no one is smelling of roses. This should be obvious to anyone who isn't a hyper-partisan. But that doesn't mean we can't say all of this could have been avoided if Israel ha…

Is there really cause to believe a peaceful compromise would have been possible even without the settlements? Has there been any period where the borders between Israel and its neighbors have been peacefully respected by both sides?

Israel's two largest borders are with Egypt and Jordan, both of which it has shared peaceful relations with for decades. It shares a complicated border with Syria, where it has for more decades held a salient into Syrian sovereign territory (the Golan), but until recently there has been little military activity involving it. It's the Lebanese border where all the action is at.

Re: How Israel’s bulky pager fooled Hezbollah

#134

Post by xfax »

bhouston wrote: post #88
arp242 wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the bit that this misses is that the root of all the problems we've seen over the last few decades is that Israel keeps doing their settlement thing. In spite of decades of pretty much the entire rest of the world – including the US – saying they should not be doing that. I don't approve of Hezbollah or Hamas; but if you strip away the violence and Islamic extremism and all of that then the uncomfortable real…

In the end we need a two-state solution with Israel and the Palestinians have self-determination and security. The faults of those involved are many, but the solution is known - it is a two-state solution, an end to armed attacks on Israeli civilians/homes and an end to the settlements. Thomas Friedman has great takes on this regularly in his NYTimes column: https://www.nytimes.com/column/thomas-l-friedman

A two-state solution is a fever dream if the occupier is uninterested in it. We’ve seen that repeatedly for the past 75+ years in actions and literal words.

So the question is, if you were the subjugated population, what would you do?

Re: How Israel’s bulky pager fooled Hezbollah

#135

Post by tptacek »

xfax wrote: post #134
bhouston wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the end we need a two-state solution with Israel and the Palestinians have self-determination and security. The faults of those involved are many, but the solution is known - it is a two-state solution, an end to armed attacks on Israeli civilians/homes and an end to the settlements. Thomas Friedman has great takes on this regularly in his NYTimes column: https://www.nytimes.com/column/thomas-l-friedman

A two-state solution is a fever dream if the occupier is uninterested in it. We’ve seen that repeatedly for the past 75+ years in actions and literal words. So the question is, if you were the subjugated population, what would you do?

Not kill 1200 people, including 815 civilians, and take an addition 251 hostage.

But I think it's really important to be clear about who "we" is here. Last I checked, a majority of Gazans are not old enough ever to have voted in an election (the last one was held almost 20 years ago). If you mean "Hamas", and you stipulate that Hamas is in any way operating in the best interests of living Gazans in the present, it's easy to give a clear answer to that question. If you mean Gazan civilians, the true victims of Hamas, it's much more complicated.

Re: How Israel’s bulky pager fooled Hezbollah

#136

Post by pcthrowaway »

gamblor956 wrote: post #122
bostik wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If a similar and equally large-scale attack was done by a nation at war with US, targeting US military command, would that be a low-casualty operation or an act of terrorism? And would it matter if the technical interpretation differed wildly from the general perception? For what it's worth, I consider both parties in their forever war to be irredeemable bastards. As I learned early on, the network of tunnels in Gaza…

If there is a declared state of war between two countries, than someone else doing what Israel did to Hezbollah would be considered a valid act of war. The problem is that Israel and Hezbollah are currently in a state of informal hostilities but are not in a state of declared war. That distinction matters at the international level. In the case of Gaza, Israel and Hamas were in a truce, until Hamas unilaterally broke…

> In the case of Gaza, Israel and Hamas were in a truce, until Hamas unilaterally broke that truce on October 7, 2023.

This is one of the things that keep getting repeated which I've found no source for. "There was a ceasefire on October 6"

I'm aware of a 1-month ceasefire in 2014, which I believe was respected by both parties.

There was a 6-month ceasefire in 2008 which was broken by Israel shortly before its completion: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Israel%E2%80%93Hamas_ceas...

Show me a source for a ceasefire/truce that was in effect on October 6 2023?

Re: How Israel’s bulky pager fooled Hezbollah

#137

Post by xpl »

gamblor956 wrote: post #122
bostik wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If a similar and equally large-scale attack was done by a nation at war with US, targeting US military command, would that be a low-casualty operation or an act of terrorism? And would it matter if the technical interpretation differed wildly from the general perception? For what it's worth, I consider both parties in their forever war to be irredeemable bastards. As I learned early on, the network of tunnels in Gaza…

If there is a declared state of war between two countries, than someone else doing what Israel did to Hezbollah would be considered a valid act of war. The problem is that Israel and Hezbollah are currently in a state of informal hostilities but are not in a state of declared war. That distinction matters at the international level. In the case of Gaza, Israel and Hamas were in a truce, until Hamas unilaterally broke…

Nations do not declare wars anymore, because wars are illegal since WW2. Quoting Wikipedia:

> Since 1945, developments in international law such as the United Nations Charter, which prohibits both the threat and the use of force in international conflicts, have made declarations of war largely obsolete in international relations

So since then, wars are now called "counter-terrorist operations", "peace enforcement operations", "special military operations" — you name it.

Nobody "declares war" anymore. See, for a defensive war (when a nation is being attacked) there is no legal need to declare it in the first place — and this is why Ukraine does not "declare war on Russia", and this is why Israel does not declare war against Hezbollah (and Hezbollah is not even a state to begin with) — it is a defensive war from the legal standpoint.

You declare an offensive war. And this is illegal. Once you do it, there will be legal repercussions, like troubles with purchasing weapons from other countries (as they often have laws prohibiting from selling weapons to countries at war). So why would anybody do it? It would be silly.

Re: How Israel’s bulky pager fooled Hezbollah

#138

Post by xfax »

tptacek wrote: post #135
xfax wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A two-state solution is a fever dream if the occupier is uninterested in it. We’ve seen that repeatedly for the past 75+ years in actions and literal words. So the question is, if you were the subjugated population, what would you do?

Not kill 1200 people, including 815 civilians, and take an addition 251 hostage. But I think it's really important to be clear about who "we" is here. Last I checked, a majority of Gazans are not old enough ever to have voted in an election (the last one was held almost 20 years ago). If you mean "Hamas", and you stipulate that Hamas is in any way operating in the best interests of living Gazans in the present, it's…

Hamas is a symptom of desperation. It certainly is not acting in the best interest of Gazans and they are suffering due to that.

But on the other hand, diplomacy has not been an effective tool for Gazans and, as all signs indicate, it never will. Not at least until US withdraws its unconditional support for Israel.

With status quo, Gazans have the choice to lie down and die or continue living under deplorable conditions under a military occupation, as Israel slowly annexes the land that, under international law, doesn’t belong to them.

Re: How Israel’s bulky pager fooled Hezbollah

#139

Post by tptacek »

xfax wrote: post #138
tptacek wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not kill 1200 people, including 815 civilians, and take an addition 251 hostage. But I think it's really important to be clear about who "we" is here. Last I checked, a majority of Gazans are not old enough ever to have voted in an election (the last one was held almost 20 years ago). If you mean "Hamas", and you stipulate that Hamas is in any way operating in the best interests of living Gazans in the present, it's…

Hamas is a symptom of desperation. It certainly is not acting in the best interest of Gazans and they are suffering due to that. But on the other hand, diplomacy has not been an effective tool for Gazans and, as all signs indicate, it never will. Not at least until US withdraws its unconditional support for Israel. With status quo, Gazans have the choice to lie down and die or continue living under deplorable conditi…

I agree. Gazan civilians had no good options (though, as we've discovered, it was possible for things to get far worse for them than they had been, and I don't think it serves any purpose to sugarcoat that).

Having said that: I don't want to get into 2024 Israeli policy with regards to Gaza, because with this ruling coalition who knows anything, but in the status quo ante of this attack Israel was not in fact slowly annexing the Gaza. (They are slowly annexing the West Bank, to be sure, but these are distinct populations with distinct governance).

Re: How Israel’s bulky pager fooled Hezbollah

#140

Post by xfax »

tptacek wrote: post #139
xfax wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hamas is a symptom of desperation. It certainly is not acting in the best interest of Gazans and they are suffering due to that. But on the other hand, diplomacy has not been an effective tool for Gazans and, as all signs indicate, it never will. Not at least until US withdraws its unconditional support for Israel. With status quo, Gazans have the choice to lie down and die or continue living under deplorable conditi…

I agree. Gazan civilians had no good options (though, as we've discovered, it was possible for things to get far worse for them than they had been, and I don't think it serves any purpose to sugarcoat that). Having said that: I don't want to get into 2024 Israeli policy with regards to Gaza, because with this ruling coalition who knows anything, but in the status quo ante of this attack Israel was not in fact slowly…

You’re right. I was referring to the Palestinian Territories in the context of annexation.
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