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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

#221

Post by edanm »

talldayo wrote: post #219
edanm wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But it's clear that no matter what I say you're gonna excuse it. Throwing a baby into an oven in front of the father is some next level nazi shit. If you'll excuse that you'll excuse anything. I didn't excuse it. I said it was a terrible act. It was also committed more than 70 years ago, technically before Israel was even founded. Quite literally 3 years after millions of Jews were systematically burned in Nazi-Ger…

> It was also committed more than 70 years ago, technically before Israel was even founded. > Those were statements made the week after the horrible October 7th massacre. They were propaganda statements that should never have been made, but you call it repeated. And it isn't. Hmm... I smell a double standard. Cite Israeli aggression too recently and it's justified sensationalism - cite it from the 50s and you're pass…

> Hmm... I smell a double standard. Cite Israeli aggression too recently and it's justified sensationalism - cite it from the 50s and you're passing an invisible statute of limitations.

My problem with citing one statement out of a thousand is that it gives the wrong impression, especially if that is made in the heat of war rhetoric.

And I don't think there's any double standard with saying that we should consider war crimes committed 80 years ago as less relevant. That's how everyone thinks of things all the time in other contexts. Egypt was one of the countries that fought wars with Israel multiple times - now Egypt and Israel have peace. Moving on from past violence is pretty much how every conflict eventually ends.

> The events of October 7th were gruesome indeed, but most people will admit that Israel's reactions were too incensed to take seriously.

Most people think so. And they might be right. I certainly have a lot of questions and doubts about the way Israel has carried out the war.

But it's worth noting that many/most of the most vocal critics of Israel were incredibly critical before Israel had done almost anything. Israel was accused of genocide almost days after October 7th. And indeed, all over the world, people were protesting Israel while Hamas militants were still inside Israel slaughtering families, before Israel had done any response.

So I take criticism of Israel from some people seriously, but with a huge grain of salt.

Re: How Israel’s bulky pager fooled Hezbollah

#222

Post by [deleted] »

nujabe wrote: post #217
tptacek wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One reason I call them that is that they fought Israel to a standstill in southern Lebanon not long ago; the missile attacks were presumably an attempt to lure the IDF into a similar confrontation. Hezbollah is Iran; they are an instrument of the IRGC. Israel and Iran aren't near-peer military forces; they are peers. Israel cannot unilaterally overwhelm Iran.

[flagged]

[deleted]

Re: How Israel’s bulky pager fooled Hezbollah

#223

Post by tptacek »

edanm wrote: post #212
tptacek wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Israel spent 18 years willfully not addressing Hamas the way it did Hezbollah, as a mechanism to prevent a 2-state solution. Israel is responsible for the fact that it did not have the level of seriousness and preparation for Hamas that it did for Hezbollah, knowing full well that it would ultimately end up fighting Hezbollah in the sparsely populated hills of southern Lebanon, and Hamas in dense urban areas. It is c…

> Please do not mistake me for someone who has any sympathy for the plight Israeli leadership finds itself in today. They belong in the Hague. That's fair enough, many Israelis feel likewise. You shouldn't mistake me for liking the Israeli leadership either. That said - Hamas played a game of pretending to be appeased, and it worked. I agree that Israel has been absolutely immoral over the last 18 years, though I thi…

This is like, imagine David Koresh's Branch Davidian cult took over Waco, and then the entirely of Texas CD17, and the Republican governor of Texas deliberately made space for the cult for electoral reasons. Later, Koresh starts a march towards Austin, making it as far as Temple, which he sacks before being turned back; the ensuing effort to apprehend him in Waco kills 5% of the its entire civilian population.

Who do I blame for this situation? There's a lot to go around. Certainly, I do not come out thinking Koresh's Branch Davidians were the victims. I am also not so much interested in the percentage of blame allocated to each culpable party; they're all awful.

Re: How Israel’s bulky pager fooled Hezbollah

#224

Post by edanm »

arp242 wrote: post #218
edanm wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Oslo accords were almost entirely concessions from the Palestinian side. There were no meaningful concessions on the Israeli settlement policy. This is just not true. The Palestinians didn't have any recognized governing body before the accords; the accords made the Palestinian Authority the official representative of the Palestinian people, and outlined the areas from which Israel would withdraw and that would be…

> Had they agreed, there would be a peace in place today. There was no meaningful "peace deal" because there were no meaningful concessions on the root cause: the settlement policy. And several Israeli politicians were sabotaging things by encouraging further settlements. My case is very simple: there needs to be a significant compromise on the settlement policy first, and only then can any meaningful agreement be re…

> There was no meaningful "peace deal" because there were no meaningful concessions on the root cause: the settlement policy.

I don't understand what you mean. The negotiation was to come to an agreement to stop settlement activity and give all the territory to the Palestinians.

Are you saying the problem is that there were no concessions before the negotiations had reached an agreement? That is not how negotiations typically work.

> My case is very simple: there needs to be a significant compromise on the settlement policy first, and only then can any meaningful agreement be reached and violence be reduced.

Look, I agree that settlement activity should stop. Many Israelis agree and don't want settlement activity to continue.

The problem is that many Israelis are convinced, very likely correctly, that undoing settlements without a deal will cause far more violence to happen to Israel. This is exactly what happened with Gaza - a unilateral withdrawal of army and settlements, before any negotiated agreement, led to Gaza turning into a launching pad of rockets on Israel.

I still think the settler violence happening today in the WB is abhorrent, all new settlements must cease immediately, etc. I'm totally with you there. I don't know if it'll happen - we may be too far gone at this stage.

In any case, Palestinian violence has basically always backfired on Palestinians. Even if you can somehow accept it morally (which you absolutely shouldn't), the end result is that every single bad condition of the Palestinians has been the direct result of violence, including the horrific condition of Gaza right now. Maybe trying a different approach like renouncing violence is just a good idea?

Re: How Israel’s bulky pager fooled Hezbollah

#225

Post by edanm »

hmcq6 wrote: post #216
edanm wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No, that's not how this works. My 23&Me says my family came from Africa (as did all people), then southwest Asia then Europe but that doesn't give me the right to go to one of those countries and claim land. You brought up indigeneity. In what way are Jews not indigenous? I agreed with you that it's irrelevant right after. I don't think it automatically gives anyone right to claim any land. > Yes, Jews fleeing the…

>A two state solution is the stated goal of the PA, the representative of the Palestinian people. It was the goal of Arafat. Are you seriously saying that their goal, had it been reached, was a continuation of colonization? I'm sorry but wasn't this also you? > OK. Can we agree that withdrawing all settlements and the military means less occupation than before? Obviously, there are many in Palestine who would agree t…

I'm not sure I understand what you're saying.

To clarify some things that maybe are unclear:

First, occupation is not the same as colonization. Second, I was speaking of Gaza specifically when I talked about there being more vs. less occupation - not all of Israel.

> Obviously, there are many in Palestine who would agree to a deal that granted them statehood and meant less occupation than before even if it didn't mean the full return of the land.

So I don't understand what you're advocating. You said that a two state solution (which Palestinians so far have never agreed to) is just a continuation of colonization.

What solution do you think is a) the right one and b) the practical one? I don't understand how my advocating of what probably 95% of peace activists are advocating is wrong.

Re: How Israel’s bulky pager fooled Hezbollah

#226

Post by edanm »

tptacek wrote: post #223
edanm wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Please do not mistake me for someone who has any sympathy for the plight Israeli leadership finds itself in today. They belong in the Hague. That's fair enough, many Israelis feel likewise. You shouldn't mistake me for liking the Israeli leadership either. That said - Hamas played a game of pretending to be appeased, and it worked. I agree that Israel has been absolutely immoral over the last 18 years, though I thi…

This is like, imagine David Koresh's Branch Davidian cult took over Waco, and then the entirely of Texas CD17, and the Republican governor of Texas deliberately made space for the cult for electoral reasons. Later, Koresh starts a march towards Austin, making it as far as Temple, which he sacks before being turned back; the ensuing effort to apprehend him in Waco kills 5% of the its entire civilian population. Who do…

Well, I agree, the current government of Israel is awful, as is Hamas.

But I'm still not sure what you think Israel should've and could've done differently specifically on the point of Hamas.

In your scenario, if the governor of Texas had decided not to make space for the cult, and had instead rooted them out, I don't think anyone would've been upset. But do you honestly think that if, after Hamas won the elections in Gaza and kicked out the PA, that Israel had decided to invade Gaza and fought with Hamas - without direct provocation - do you think in that scenario people wouldn't be just as upset at Israel?

I say this as a Netanyahu-hating leftist "peace-advocate" (mostly). I think most of us would've been upset at the "war-mongering" Netanyahu in that situation. That's why I hard on this - it's a self-criticism as much as it is a criticsm of others. The truth is, pre-emptive war might've been the correct move against Hezbollah and against Hamas, but I honestly don't think anyone would've been ok with Israel doing it. Do you think otherwise?

Re: How Israel’s bulky pager fooled Hezbollah

#227

Post by dang »

nujabe wrote: post #217
tptacek wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One reason I call them that is that they fought Israel to a standstill in southern Lebanon not long ago; the missile attacks were presumably an attempt to lure the IDF into a similar confrontation. Hezbollah is Iran; they are an instrument of the IRGC. Israel and Iran aren't near-peer military forces; they are peers. Israel cannot unilaterally overwhelm Iran.

[flagged]

The end of your comment was a shameful personal attack* and disgustingly anti-semitic**, made worse (if possible) by internet insults. If you pull a trick like that on HN again, we will ban you.

I don't see how it's in your interest to discredit your own argument with gutter-level slurs, but if that's what you want to do, please do it elsewhere. I wonder how the many Jewish people arguing for the same position that you are, some of whom even have "jewish names", feel about posts like yours.

(* the tinyurl.com link at the end points to a "let me google that for you" with the query "is Ptacek a jewish name".)

(** I don't use language like this in HN mod comments very often, because I don't want to cheapen it, but this is an exception.)

Re: How Israel’s bulky pager fooled Hezbollah

#228

Post by dragonwriter »

edanm wrote: post #226
tptacek wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is like, imagine David Koresh's Branch Davidian cult took over Waco, and then the entirely of Texas CD17, and the Republican governor of Texas deliberately made space for the cult for electoral reasons. Later, Koresh starts a march towards Austin, making it as far as Temple, which he sacks before being turned back; the ensuing effort to apprehend him in Waco kills 5% of the its entire civilian population. Who do…

Well, I agree, the current government of Israel is awful, as is Hamas. But I'm still not sure what you think Israel should've and could've done differently specifically on the point of Hamas. In your scenario, if the governor of Texas had decided not to make space for the cult, and had instead rooted them out, I don't think anyone would've been upset. But do you honestly think that if, after Hamas won the elections i…

> But I'm still not sure what you think Israel should've and could've done differently specifically on the point of Hamas.

They could have not actively worked to foster the networks in Gaza that became Hamas in order to both split Palestinian opposition and have a less sympathetic, more extremist, more Islamic opposition to deflect international pressure to make peace with the Palestinians.

Re: How Israel’s bulky pager fooled Hezbollah

#229

Post by runarberg »

tptacek wrote: post #220
runarberg wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My point was originally that history does indeed have examples of apartheid states dissolving, contradicting your prediction that Israel wouldn’t dissolve. My point was simply to prove you wrong by citing historic examples. My point was never to compare Israel to Rwanda (which I never did) but rather, since you weren’t convinced by the original statement, to further my case by citing other genocidal rampages which di…

The Syrian state ran out of ordinary munitions during the civil war, but so desired to ethnically cleanse Sunni Palestinian refugee camps that they improvised by packing metal oil drums with high explosives, nails, scrap, and bearings, and then dropping them from helicopters onto the camps. There's video footage. Soldiers in the helicopters have to light fuses on them by hand, like 1920s silent film villains. They ad…

If you can find a genocide in post WW2 history that didn’t result in the failure of the perpetrators state, that only refutes the absolute strongest version of my claim. However that doesn’t refute my general claim that Genocidal states do in fact tend to dissolve over the following decades, and that history has examples of apartheid states—even heavily armed ones—dissolving into a single state democracy of all its people.

Looking at history the pattern is pretty clear, even though it is not absolute (nothing in history is).

Re: How Israel’s bulky pager fooled Hezbollah

#230

Post by hmcq6 »

edanm wrote: post #221
talldayo wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It was also committed more than 70 years ago, technically before Israel was even founded. > Those were statements made the week after the horrible October 7th massacre. They were propaganda statements that should never have been made, but you call it repeated. And it isn't. Hmm... I smell a double standard. Cite Israeli aggression too recently and it's justified sensationalism - cite it from the 50s and you're pass…

> Hmm... I smell a double standard. Cite Israeli aggression too recently and it's justified sensationalism - cite it from the 50s and you're passing an invisible statute of limitations. My problem with citing one statement out of a thousand is that it gives the wrong impression, especially if that is made in the heat of war rhetoric. And I don't think there's any double standard with saying that we should consider wa…

> My problem with citing one statement out of a thousand is that it gives the wrong impression, especially if that is made in the heat of war rhetoric.

The Amalek quote is from October or November but

“This is a battle, not only of Israel against these barbarians, it is a battle of civilisation against barbarism,” Dec 24th

> Israeli President Isaac Herzog said a few weeks earlier, on December 5, that Israel’s attack on Gaza is “a war that is intended, really, truly, to save western civilisation… [from] an empire of evil”.

Or you could just check out this database of 500+ genocidal statements presented to the ICJ https://law4palestine.org/law-for-palestine-releases-databas... (not all of them come from the government but it's a great resource)

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