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Israel used Palantir technologies in pager attack in Lebanon

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Re: Israel used Palantir technologies in pager attack in Lebanon

#321

Post by sys32768 »

jmyeet wrote: post #169
impossiblefork wrote: post #8

I actually consider the pager attack to be legal. There's obviously criticism of it, but I'm fairly sure you're allowed to do this kind of thing by laws of war. Obviously this creates a huge problem for pretty much everyone though, since we can imagine that our ordinary consumer products from all sorts countries could similarly explode if we ended up at war with the manufacturers.

It's quite clearly a war crime. You're putting booby trapped devices into supply chains where civilians will foreseeably get them and be injured or killed by them. This includes medical professionals and their families, who were both victims [1]. It's the equivalent of blowing up a commercial plane or bus because there's a military commander on it. Or, you know, levelling a residential apartment building [2]. If anyo…

Would you be here pushing the war crime narrative if Hamas had pulled off this operation on the IDF?

Re: Israel used Palantir technologies in pager attack in Lebanon

#323

Post by memonkey »

kjkjadksj wrote: post #99
zug_zug wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know if it's "legal" or not and by who's laws, but it certainly seems like terrorism to me (i.e. intentionally creating a state of terror). I think if Lebanon found a clever way to assassinate the top 45 military commanders in Israel the same people who are defending this wouldn't be calling it a "Legal act of war".

How are all acts of war not “intentionally creating a state of terror?”

i think there are internationally recognized lawful terminology that several institutions and countries recognize that permit the use of "act of war" and "terrorism". but at any given time a country _does_ act of war/terrorism, they likely would deny claims of terrorism if it was recognized as terrorism by said institutions.

Re: Israel used Palantir technologies in pager attack in Lebanon

#324

Post by krona »

joecool1029 wrote: post #119

So, what exactly did Palantir provide? I'm staying out of commenting whether or not this was legal/justified and asking strictly what service this was that was sold. Is this like, live location information provided from social media/carriers/etc? Is it AI guessing who might be a target based on collected data? EDIT: I ask because this sort of claim could just be marketing on Panantir's end and the quotes and this pos…

Having being working as a direct competitor to Palantir on and off for the past decade, I'd guess one of their embedded engineers wrote a few custom SQL queries.

Re: Israel used Palantir technologies in pager attack in Lebanon

#325

Post by sirfz »

dralley wrote: post #95
zug_zug wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know if it's "legal" or not and by who's laws, but it certainly seems like terrorism to me (i.e. intentionally creating a state of terror). I think if Lebanon found a clever way to assassinate the top 45 military commanders in Israel the same people who are defending this wouldn't be calling it a "Legal act of war".

Targeted attacks against military/militia leadership is not terrorism - almost by definition. If it was just random devices exploding, then sure, that could be considered terrorism. But it wasn't random devices, it was communication devices procured by Hezbollah and directly given by Hezbollah to their own members for their own purposes.

[flagged]

Re: Israel used Palantir technologies in pager attack in Lebanon

#326

Post by jackling »

hersko wrote: post #225
jackling wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue is that Israel has no idea where those pagers were at the time of the attack, civilians were directly hurt by the explosions: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/survivors-of-israels-page...

You think you are not allowed to do a military strike if civilians may be hurt?

Your comment is nonsense. What do you mean by “allowed”? Who is enforcing the rules of what is “allowed” and what isn’t? The fact is that Israel carried out an attack that severely harmed civilians. The question is whether it was targeted or whether it constitutes terrorism.

My claim is that since Israel could not have possibly known who was in possession of the pagers at the time of the attack, and since the attack occurred regardless of who was nearby—detonating all pagers in civilian-occupied areas—Israel did, in effect, target civilians.

If you attack a military target that is surrounded by civilians, and that attack injures or kills those civilians, then those civilians were also targeted. Do you think all that matters is who the primary target was, and that as long as Israel decides the civilian casualties were “worth it,” the decision is moral?

Re: Israel used Palantir technologies in pager attack in Lebanon

#327

Post by uhhhd »

zug_zug wrote: post #83
impossiblefork wrote: post #8

I actually consider the pager attack to be legal. There's obviously criticism of it, but I'm fairly sure you're allowed to do this kind of thing by laws of war. Obviously this creates a huge problem for pretty much everyone though, since we can imagine that our ordinary consumer products from all sorts countries could similarly explode if we ended up at war with the manufacturers.

I don't know if it's "legal" or not and by who's laws, but it certainly seems like terrorism to me (i.e. intentionally creating a state of terror). I think if Lebanon found a clever way to assassinate the top 45 military commanders in Israel the same people who are defending this wouldn't be calling it a "Legal act of war".

Terrorism targets civilians. So no, this isn't terrorism.

Re: Israel used Palantir technologies in pager attack in Lebanon

#329

Post by blitzar »

breppp wrote: post #273
Cyph0n wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Doctors don't use pagers anymore, just like tech on calls used to and don't anymore. Mobile phones are far superior for that, and are very available anywhere in the world, and especially to doctors Regarding whether that's brilliant, that is not my wording, but generally it was quite mild compared to the methods of Hezbollah and was highly successful in ending a war with very little bloodshed. The other alternative w…

> Doctors don't use pagers anymore,

The UK's National Health Service (NHS) is widely considered the single largest user of pagers in the world, with over 130,000 devices in use as of recent years. This figure represented an estimated 10% of the total number of pagers remaining globally.

Re: Israel used Palantir technologies in pager attack in Lebanon

#330

Post by Seattle3503 »

amarcheschi wrote: post #285
dralley wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We literally have videos of these going off in public spaces. The explosions were weak enough that people literally inches away were unharmed. The only way to be seriously injured is to be holding it in your hands or against your body. You cannot seriously call it an attack "on civilians" - you especially cannot say that it's in pursuit of a non-military goal when it kicked off a literal military operation by crippli…

The explosions were in fact strong enough that innocent people, including children, died https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_Lebanon_electronic_device...

That doesn't necessarily mean the blast radius was large. The 9 year old was killed while holding the pager.

> Fatima was in the kitchen on Tuesday when a pager on the table began to beep, her aunt said. She picked up the device to bring it to her father and was holding it when it exploded, mangling her face and leaving the room covered in blood, she said.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/18/world/middleeast/lebanon-...

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