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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

#481

Post by tptacek »

dang wrote: post #478
unyttigfjelltol wrote: post #449

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here is an excellent and HN-worthy writeup of the argument for legality, and the counterargument that it was an improper booby trap.[1] It seems to me most of the polarizarion on this board could have been avoided had the original article recognized (as does the one linked here) "that the legality or illegality of the pagers attack can only be determined on the basis of a detailed factual analysis and that the releva…

> I disagree with @dang's decision to leave the original link up, as it is nearly valuless in framing this discussion I'm open to replacing it with a better link, but the one you've listed here (even though it's a much more in-depth article) isn't about this specific topic. I found https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israel-used-palantir-its-... by googling. Is it better than OP?

No, they're basically the same, and this Substack has some additional primary source material the MEE piece doesn't (MEE and this Substack have approximately the same editorial slant).

For whatever it's worth I think it's fine that the resource posted in that comment just makes it an especially valuable comment, without altering the story itself.

Re: Israel used Palantir technologies in pager attack in Lebanon

#482

Post by [deleted] »

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.

[deleted]

Re: Israel used Palantir technologies in pager attack in Lebanon

#484

Post by da-x »

cramsession wrote: post #10
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.

Attacking a civilian population is a war crime.

No war in history has completely avoided any civilian casualties or attacks on civilian populations, as even limited conflicts often involve indirect harm (e.g., from stray fire, blockades, or displacement), and larger wars almost inevitably affect non-combatants.

Curious how the concept of the 'war crime' is weaponized by the pacifist and largely ignored by the non-pacifist that knows how proper deescalation can take place.

Re: Israel used Palantir technologies in pager attack in Lebanon

#485

Post by richardfeynman »

Cyph0n wrote: post #358
richardfeynman wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The timing was during a war, the location was in a belligerent country, and the pagers were only and exclusively given to hezbollah leadership. The very definition of discriminate. Also, Israel has not "self-evaluated" a >80% civilian to combatant kill ratio. There was a Haaretz report that said the IDF was able to ID about 20% of those killed as militants against known databases, which is remarkably high compared to…

Re: timing - They were triggered to explode en masse, which implies that there was zero consideration to minimizing civilian harm. Re: location - They exploded everywhere you can think of, while these targets were doing civilian activities near other civilians, and not in a combat setting. Re: possession - Given the above, and Israel’s horrendous kill ratio, there was definitely no consideration for possession of the…

timing - The fact that they were triggered to explode en masse does not imply there was zero consideration to minimizing civilian harm. However, the fact that only Hezbollah leaders had these pagers, and the fact that the explosives were small, does imply there was deep consideration to minimizing civilian harm.

location - they all exploded on the person of hezbolllah leaders or in their possession in a belligerent country during wartime

possession - Israel has a laudable and low civilian: militant kill ratio, possibly the best in the history of modern combat. The pagers were encrypted military devices with military messages, there was no known use by doctors or non Hezbollah operatives.

Re: Israel used Palantir technologies in pager attack in Lebanon

#486

Post by viccis »

parineum wrote: post #458
viccis wrote: post #400

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would apply to Americans and Israelis too.

I'm not a member of any American military or political organization that takes any kind of military action.

If you're registered to vote, you are. Congrats.

Re: Israel used Palantir technologies in pager attack in Lebanon

#487

Post by Sabinus »

jack_tripper wrote: post #380
fireflash38 wrote: post #369

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are indeed actors who only respect might. That is not universal. Preaching might is right is also not universal. It is still important to have might even if you aren't in that camp because inevitably you will run into people with that worldview and they cannot be reasoned with without might.

Military might is the thing keeping the USD the world reserve currency instead of the GBP, EUR or Yuan. It's literally the core keeping the US economy and prosperity. And things don't have to be universal to be true, but just one leader/nation bombing or abusing the shit out of you is all you need to teach you this lesson, and waving the Geneva convention in their face won't help you. The real world is harsh, unfair…

>Military might is the thing keeping the USD the world reserve currency instead of the GBP, EUR or Yuan. It's literally the core keeping the US economy and prosperity.

No it's not. The size of the American economy, it's extensive trade, the independence of the Central Bank and the rule of law and commitment to paying debts do that. Americans do not force anyone to trade in USD.

Re: Israel used Palantir technologies in pager attack in Lebanon

#488

Post by tptacek »

giraffe_lady wrote: post #23
myth_drannon wrote: post #21

One of the most sucessful integelligence operations ever, absolutely brilliant. And the brilliance in my opinion is that the targeting was not your regular Hizbollah terrorists but only higher ranking members the one who were given the beepers. So basically cutting the head of the snake. I doubt Palantir had any involvement, just trying to get some credit. The operation to attack the supply chain was started long bef…

The brilliance in the targeting was in doing pagers, which are disproportionately carried by doctors and other medical workers. One of the most effective acts of terrorism in history.

The pagers that were targeted were exclusively used by Hezbollah combatants, procured by Hezbollah, linked to an encrypted military network Hezbollah fought a civil war in Lebanon to established, triggered by a message encrypted to that network. The bombs consisted of 6 grams of PETN, yielding a 35kJ blast, approximately the size of 5-10 cherry bombs, or 2% of the raw explosive yield of an M67 grenade --- with the key difference that the pagers were just pagers, with no metal parts introduced (deliberately, to avoid detection by Hezbollah), unlike fragmentation grenades, whose lethality (at 5m) stems from the hardened steel shrapnel they project.

(The device and procurement details here are from Reuters).

So no, I don't think your point about doctors and medical workers is well taken.

Re: Israel used Palantir technologies in pager attack in Lebanon

#489

Post by Manuel_D »

tw04 wrote: post #246
mlyle wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I haven't seen a report of 4000 civilians injured. I have seen a report of 4000 people injured across the two attacks, but presumably some fraction of these are targets. 42 killed, of whom Hezbollah said 12 were civilians (later admitting some of the 12 were fighters). Historical average is about half of the wounded or killed in conflicts to be civilians. < 12/42 would be a relatively "good" ratio.

You didn’t see 4,000 because you didn’t look for it. It’s literally in the wikipedia article linked in the thread you’re responding to with multiple associated citations.

To be clear, that claim of 4,000 comes from a member of Hezbollah:

> According to the Lebanese government, the attack killed 42 people,[11] including 12 civilians,[12] and injured 4,000 civilians (according to Mustafa Bairam, Minister of Labour and a member of Hezbollah).

The wikipedia page's other reference claiming that the majority of those injured were civilians is also vague. For instance, it writes, "On 26 September, Abdallah Bou Habib, Lebanon's Foreign Minister, confirmed that most of those carrying pagers were not fighters, but civilians like administrators"

The reference for that sentence is this, which reads: https://carnegieendowment.org/emissary/2024/09/israel-hezbol...

> It was an attack mostly on Hezbollah, but a lot of civilians got hurt in the process, because not everybody is sitting there fighting on the front. These are people who have pagers or have telephones. They are regular people. Some of them are also fighters, but not most of them. A lot of them are administrators working here and there. . . .

This is a very different claim that what the article reads. "Administrators" and "not fighters" is a very different thing than "civilian". A woman working in my building also works in the Army's HR department during the day. She's literally a member of the military, but it's also not wrong to say she is "not a fighter" and an "administrator".

In short, the idea that we have credible evidence that the 4,000 people who were injured (and more, importantly, those that were actually maimed rather than receiving light injuries) were mostly civilians doesn't seem to pan out.

Re: Israel used Palantir technologies in pager attack in Lebanon

#490

Post by sysguest »

amarcheschi wrote: post #340
Seattle3503 wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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-.…

Oh, I didn't know this. Innocent people were still killed and maimed by shrapnel. The other children aged 11 was killed when his father's pager detonated

hmm maybe you don't know there's "intentional homicide" and "unintentional homicide", and those two differ extremely in court?

seems like you like being sarcastic, but don't know basic stuff even 15 year olds know

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