Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Israel used Palantir technologies in pager attack in Lebanon

the307.substack.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

411–420 of 832 posts

Re: Israel used Palantir technologies in pager attack in Lebanon

#411

Post by sporkxrocket »

tptacek wrote: post #409
sporkxrocket wrote: post #408

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been following this very closely from the start. Hezbollah was targeting radio towers and IDF personnel. Hezbollah denied that it was their rocket that hit the Druze and they certainly didn't have any other attacks that matched that type of target. Again, it's well documented that Israel has caused orders of magnitude more civilian damage and casualties than Hezbollah: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel%E2%80%…

You haven't responded to any claim I've made other than to advance a claim that Hezbollah, which fired tens of thousands of mostly unguided rockets into Israel, did not in fact kill 12 Druze children in the Golan Heights. Our premises may be too far apart to usefully discuss this. The core of my argument (the comparative military and civilian body counts in Syria and Yemen) aren't going to be easy to refute by appeal…

Unguided doesn't mean unaimed. Here's an example (of many) of the types of attacks Hezbollah had been executing: https://x.com/ME_Observer_/status/1710938611858780314

Edit: I'm now throttled from posting but I was able to go back and find more video of Hezbollah's attacks on Israel military facilities. I think people should watch these and judge for themselves:

* https://x.com/ME_Observer_/status/1752035071047926029

* https://x.com/ME_Observer_/status/1790471234867568905

* https://x.com/ME_Observer_/status/1756031325264318682

* https://x.com/ME_Observer_/status/1743565825771032895

* https://x.com/ME_Observer_/status/1810011590118305895

* https://x.com/ME_Observer_/status/1791216213785268522

Re: Israel used Palantir technologies in pager attack in Lebanon

#412

Post by sporkxrocket »

FridayoLeary wrote: post #399
Seattle3503 wrote: post #397

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If fully realized it would mean we actually have international law, including fair trials. Imagine slapping Putin in handcuffs when he touches down in any Western country, rather than the glad-handing and photo ops he gets now. Dictators play democracies off each other. International law is in part about solving a coordination problem.

That's just wishful thinking. I would argue that by going after Israel in such a blatantly biased way the ICC and the UN have fallen to precisely the sort of groups you want to use them against. Not saying the ICC can't be useful, you would just have to massively limit the scope of their "authority" to realistic targets. I.e. South American dictators and various warlords. And of course islamic terrorists. Plenty of i…

How is holding Israel accountable for it's very well documented war crimes "blatantly biased"?

Re: Israel used Palantir technologies in pager attack in Lebanon

#413

Post by tptacek »

sporkxrocket wrote: post #411
tptacek wrote: post #409

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You haven't responded to any claim I've made other than to advance a claim that Hezbollah, which fired tens of thousands of mostly unguided rockets into Israel, did not in fact kill 12 Druze children in the Golan Heights. Our premises may be too far apart to usefully discuss this. The core of my argument (the comparative military and civilian body counts in Syria and Yemen) aren't going to be easy to refute by appeal…

Unguided doesn't mean unaimed. Here's an example (of many) of the types of attacks Hezbollah had been executing: https://x.com/ME_Observer_/status/1710938611858780314 Edit: I'm now throttled from posting but I was able to go back and find more video of Hezbollah's attacks on Israel military facilities. I think people should watch these and judge for themselves: * https://x.com/ME_Observer_/status/1752035071047926029…

You don't want to miss a step holding Israel to account. I'm not interested in pushing back on you about that. But to accomplish that, you're defending Hezbollah. Hezbollah is indefensible. If you want to keep hashing out why, I'm willing to keep talking about it, but I suspect this isn't a productive conversation.

Re: Israel used Palantir technologies in pager attack in Lebanon

#414

Post by busterarm »

guelo wrote: post #293
breppp wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to Hezbollah sources 1500 of their terrorists were taken out of commission due to this attack. Making the death ratio 42/1500 or 3% while if only taking the civilian ratio that's even lower. Even the 12 civilian count is probably higher than reality because it is doubtful that 12 civilians had access to a military clandestine communication device https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/hezbollahs-tunnels.…

[flagged]

Hezbollah is designated as a terrorist organization by:

    Argentina
    Australia
    Austria
    Bahrain
    Canada
    Colombia
    Czech Republic
    Ecuador
    Estonia
    European Union
    France
    Germany
    Gulf Cooperation Council
    Guatemala
    Honduras
    Israel
    Kosovo
    Lithuania
    Netherlands
    New Zealand
    Paraguay
    Serbia
    Slovakia
    United Arab Emirates
    United Kingdom
    United States
but calling them terrorists is biased?

Re: Israel used Palantir technologies in pager attack in Lebanon

#415

Post by krautburglar »

philipkglass wrote: post #407
krautburglar wrote: post #405

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The post isn't the point. The point is that you have people abusing the flag mechanism. Maybe you should start ignoring their flags when they abuse it?

That's already implemented. I overused flagging at one point in my account history and my flags stopped having any effect. I eventually emailed the moderators and pledged to be more judicious with my flagging if they'd give me the power back, and they gave it back.

They need to use it more then.

Re: Israel used Palantir technologies in pager attack in Lebanon

#416

Post by thrance »

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.

If this attack had been carried on US soil it would have been grounds enough to justify another pointless war in the Middle East. But since it was committed by Israel unto a random Arabic country most Americans would fail to place on the map, it's "probably legal".

This is obviously terrorism. The methods are the same as terrorists, the intent is the same, the results are the same. 3000 wounded, this is extremely far from the "surgical precision" claimed by the fascist apartheid state of Israel.

Re: Israel used Palantir technologies in pager attack in Lebanon

#417

Post by jackling »

tptacek wrote: post #367
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...

Israel had in fact very clear intelligence that the specific pagers they were detonating were overwhelmingly going to be in the custody of combatants. This was very probably the most precisely targeted large-scale military strike of the last 100 years. That's not a value judgement; it's a descriptive claim.

Twelve civilians killed and 4,000 injured does not indicate a precise attack.

There is no credible figure for the number of combatants killed or injured. The Times of Israel reported that 1,500 fighters were injured. Taking these two data points together, a majority of those injured were civilians rather than combatants.

Where are you getting the claim that this was “probably the most precisely targeted large-scale military strike of the last 100 years”? That is a far-reaching assertion, especially given the lack of sources.

You say this is not a value judgment but a descriptive claim, yet the claim does not appear to be backed by facts.

(The 4000 figure) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_Lebanon_electronic_device... (The 1500 figure) https://www.timesofisrael.com/a-year-on-some-lebanese-bystan... (General HRW source) https://www.hrw.org/news/2024/09/18/lebanon-exploding-pagers...

Re: Israel used Palantir technologies in pager attack in Lebanon

#418

Post by FridayoLeary »

sporkxrocket wrote: post #412
FridayoLeary wrote: post #399

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's just wishful thinking. I would argue that by going after Israel in such a blatantly biased way the ICC and the UN have fallen to precisely the sort of groups you want to use them against. Not saying the ICC can't be useful, you would just have to massively limit the scope of their "authority" to realistic targets. I.e. South American dictators and various warlords. And of course islamic terrorists. Plenty of i…

How is holding Israel accountable for it's very well documented war crimes "blatantly biased"?

There you go.

There is no state organised war crimes going on, just normal war. If you can't understand the distinction that's your problem not mine. In my opinion Israels actions in Gaza fall well within the actions of a legitimate war, to the extent warfare can be legitimised. I'm not commenting on individual cases, and anyway those are not relevant to my argument.

Re: Israel used Palantir technologies in pager attack in Lebanon

#419

Post by tptacek »

jackling wrote: post #417
tptacek wrote: post #367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Israel had in fact very clear intelligence that the specific pagers they were detonating were overwhelmingly going to be in the custody of combatants. This was very probably the most precisely targeted large-scale military strike of the last 100 years. That's not a value judgement; it's a descriptive claim.

Twelve civilians killed and 4,000 injured does not indicate a precise attack. There is no credible figure for the number of combatants killed or injured. The Times of Israel reported that 1,500 fighters were injured. Taking these two data points together, a majority of those injured were civilians rather than combatants. Where are you getting the claim that this was “probably the most precisely targeted large-scale m…

Right, if in fact 1500 Hezbollah fighters were injured, any claim that over 1500 noncombatants were injured is suspicious. We have video footage of the explosions (along with a directional sense of the wounded vs. KIA count of the strike). It is not plausible that more noncombatants were injured than combatants, given the pagers were strictly military comms devices.

Re: Israel used Palantir technologies in pager attack in Lebanon

#420

Post by ignoramous »

tptacek wrote: post #373
ignoramous wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Targeted attacks against military/militia leadership is not terrorism - almost by definition. I mean, you're not wrong: the State seeks monopoly on violence; the kind of damages it can inflict, where, when and however it wants. Everyone else is ... a terrorist, and whatever they do is ... terrorism. > communication devices procured by Hezbollah and directly given by Hezbollah Replace "Hezbollah" with "the US Govt"…

The reason foreign military organizations don't routinely target active duty US military generals isn't that they're worried about being dragged into some mostly-fictitious courtroom to answer for their misdeeds. It's that the United States armed forces will very quickly reduce their entire organization, and much of the surrounding area, to its combustion products. There aren't a lot of opportunities in life you get…

> US military ... worried about being dragged into some mostly-fictitious courtroom to answer for their misdeeds...

Acutely aware of this fact, yeah.

> There aren't a lot of opportunities in life you get to use the word "annihilatory"; this is one of them.

Not wrong. None of the former great empires that fell were as military capable as the super powers of the modern era.

> And in the immortal words of William Munny out of Missouri: "deserve's" got nothing to do with it.

True. Some on the Left have extreme take on "Nation States" for this reason:

  One was to challenge the thesis that nationalism and colonialism are two separate things — that nationalism is the good side, colonialism the bad side; that nationalism came first, colonialism later, or vice versa. I wanted to show that they were twins joined at the hip. And I also wanted to show that from the outset, the nation-state project could not be achieved without ethnic cleansing and extreme violence. This could be seen in the expulsion of Jews and Muslims [from the Iberian Peninsula], and that soon led to a conflict between states, because each state had an official majority — the nation it claimed to represent — and its minority, or minorities.

  The human rights paradigm focuses on the perpetrators of violence. It wants to identify them individually so that we can hold them individually accountable. It does not look for the beneficiaries of that violence. Beneficiaries are not necessarily perpetrators. To address beneficiaries, you need to identify the issues around which violence is mobilized ...
The Idea of the Nation-State Is Synonymous With Genocide: A conversation with political theorist Mahmood Mamdani (2024), https://www.thenation.com/article/culture/mahmood-mamdani-na...
Post reply on HN