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Where is the line between war and terrorism ? This attack is quite indiscriminate. There are already videos circulating of random people being collateral damag
by 4gotunameagain 2y ago
Where is the line between war and terrorism ?
This attack is quite indiscriminate. There are already videos circulating of random people being collateral damage.
Israel is losing the support of people more and more, and all that due to the crusade of Netanyahu to stay in power and to not be imprisoned for his former crimes.
Despicable. So much human suffering and for what ?
- H8crilA 2y agoDropping kilotons of aviation bombs on a populated city is indiscriminate. This is nothing in comparison to that. Frankly I would even call this surgical.
- beeboobaa3 2y agoYou're shopping for groceries. someone is standing next to you. Their pager explodes and you are severely injured. You never had anything to do with this war. Still think it's surgical? By that definition 9/11 was surgical as well, after all they only targeted two towers and just a few people who happened to be there got hurt.
- H8crilA 2y agoIn comparison to bombing to smithereens the entire block, and having hundreds/thousands of people die under the rubble, some of them over the course of days - yes. Do you know that 100 is more than 1? Some people get confused by simple arithmetic.
- beeboobaa3 2y ago[flagged]
- babkayaga 2y agosurely more surgical than what these guys were doing, which is repeatedly shoot missiles at densely populated areas, for months.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- 34679 2y agoAre you talking about the IDF's indiscriminate bombing of civilians in Gaza?
- beeboobaa3 2y agoTwo wrongs don't make a right. The US could just drop nukes on any country they have a trade dispute with. They don't, because that is insane and disproportionate and they have the capability to do better than that. What Israel did here is something you would expect from a terrorist organization.
- abalone 2y agoThere is no question that an enemy setting off thousands of small bombs in American supermarkets and homes, maiming unknown numbers of bystanders and killing children, would be designated an act of mass terrorism. Anyone who claimed such mass terrorism is acceptable because it is not as bad as obliterating cities would be condemned as an apologist for terrorism.
- light_hue_1 2y agoThey didn't indiscriminately set off thousands of bombs in supermarkets and homes. That's not at all an accurate description of what happened. That would be terrorism. They gave a terrorist organization the ability to give its most important operatives a bomb to wear. And then they detonated that bomb. That's not terrorism. It's about as targeted of an attack as you can imagine. Blowing up terrorists is objectively a good thing.
- ignoramous 2y agoAh, that magic word terrorist to justify any heinous crime. Funny how it always is folks in the Middle East who are.
- oytis 2y agoNot always. There was IRA, there was RAF, there was ETA. It's just in Middle East this problem is much bigger today, to the point where terrorist organisations can have whole countries under their control.
- ignoramous 2y agoFor powers that be, every rebellion is terrorism. This isn't new. Today, in matters concerning ME, even college kids are labelled terrorists without much thought: https://x.com/gobloid3/status/1836437489831055659 https://x.com/gobloid3/status/1836437489831055659
- abalone 2y ago
- 4gotunameagain 2y agoThere is no way to control where the pagers will end up. No way to control who will be near them, even if they are owned by a target. You do know that carpet bombing is a war crime by Geneva Conventions ?
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- nahumfarchi 2y ago[flagged]
- remram 2y agoYes. Enough whataboutism, criticizing Israel for war crimes doesn't mean we think the opposition is not terrorist.
- ilbeeper 2y agoCarpet bombing is a large area bombardment done in a progressive manner to inflict damage in every part of a selected area of land. (From Wikipedia). In what way does the pagers attack resemble covering an entire area with a carpet of bombs?
- EmptyCoffeeCup 2y agoWhat do you mean? You fire out the "detonate" command on the frequency used by Hezbollah - only pagers connected to that network blow. It's statistically probable you'll overwhelmingly damage terrorists. Sadly collateral damage is inevitable in war, and this is far more precise than even a laser guided bomb.
- lupusreal 2y agoThe non-euphemistic term for that kind of bombing is "terror bombing". It is called "strategic bombing" by those who wish to sanitize it. Anyway, these are both terror tactics, you're setting up a false dichotomy.
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago> these are both terror tactics, you're setting up a false dichotomy Eh, there is utility to this attack beyond terror. Israel just simultaneously took out Hezbollah’s communications and definitively outed its senior members. Also, strategic bombing à la WWII wasn’t psychological—it was intended to wipe out the civilian population that worked in the war factories. States engage in what you call terror tactics all the time, for legitimate military and illegitimate reasons. The clusterfuck with the Middle East is the sheer number of non-state actors. In Gaza, that’s complicated. But in Lebanon, it’s not—-the Lebanese state is widely recognised. Hezbollah is not a state, but it’s also not purely a political party.
- lupusreal 2y ago> Eh, there is utility to this attack beyond terror As there was in bombing civilian cities, which housed factory workers making war machines. You have put up another false dichotomy. Terror attacks do not need to be devoid of all non-terror utility to be considered terror attacks. If, during America's war in Afghanistan, the Taliban had blown up pagers carried by American officers going about their lives in America it would be called terrorism. The nearby civilians injured in the blasts would be a key focus, not swept under the rug.
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago> If, during America's war in Afghanistan, the Taliban had blown up pagers carried by American officers going about their lives in America it would be called terrorism. The nearby civilians injured in the blasts would be a key focus, not swept under the rug. Because they’re a non-state actor. (Hezbollah doesn’t follow and isn’t bound by the Geneva Conventions, either.) Even if it only hit American military personnel, we’d call it terrorism. You’re labelling usual acts of war as terrorism. That punts us from the uncomfortable discussion of the human cost of war to the much more palatable one of semantics. This is war. War resembles terrorism because they’re both violent and brutal and largely indiscriminate. If this is terrorism, then we’re essentially saying any warfare is terrorism. If that is the case, then states have a legitimate right to terrorism. Not sure that’s where we want to end up.
- yes52721 2y agoExactly this. It's interesting how I haven't been able to find any single media portraying this as a possible act of terror while they have been quite critical of conduct in Gaza. I hope this changes as there really needs to be a reckoning with the idea of bombs randomly triggered anywhere, maybe hospitals, schools, theaters.
- soferio 2y agoThis military response was the opposite of indiscriminate. It was proportionate and targeted. It focussed as best as anyone ever could on the precise set of people who (hiding among their own civilians) have been launching hundreds of inaccurate rockets to kill Israeli civilians - for months.
- oneeyedpigeon 2y agoDo we know approximately how many terrorists were killed and how many civilians were killed? Do we know what steps Israel took—if any—to prevent the target pagers from falling into civilian hands?
- ignoramous 2y ago> It focused as best as anyone ever could It isn't the "best ever" as there was no guarantee the pagers were worn only by combatants. As of now, of the 9 dead, 1/3rd are definitely not: 2 children & 1 woman. > set of people who (hiding among their own civilians) These people should always wear military uniform and live in a separate neighborhood even when they're not on duty? What do you propose? > have been launching hundreds of inaccurate rockets Guess what else is also reckless and killed civilians? https://www.stephensemler.com/p/israel-has-fired-over-11k-munitions https://www.stephensemler.com/p/israel-has-fired-over-11k-mu...
- ibejoeb 2y ago>These people should always wear military uniform and live in a separate neighborhood That is on the table, yes. Otherwise, while they mingle with civilians, it's clear that the civilians are in danger. If I'm one of them, and I'm intent on persuing this action, moving to military quarters is going to come to mind. Imagine one of those pagers, hip height, at a shop queue or bus stop. Or you're on a bike in traffic next to one of them. Everything about this sucks. It absolutely is indiscriminate. It's different than droning a guy at his house and accepting his wife as collateral damange. This is 3,000+ maiming explosive devices scattered all about with no way of mitigating the collateral damange.
- 2y ago
- lm28469 2y agoIt's so weird that this super mild take is downvoted on HN... I got the same yesterday. Everything has to be binary, good vs evil, once you pick your side you have to ignore everything that compromises your idyllic vision.
- dijit 2y agoIt's downvoted because it's the definition of proportional. 3g of explosives personally handed to the most senior leadership of your enemy and with enough explosive force that 98% of people who had them attached to their person survived is the very definition of restrained and targeted. Certainly not "indiscriminate".
- ibejoeb 2y agoAm I misinformed, or was 3,000? They are the most senior 3,000? When you send out 3,000 explosive into the general population, how do you mitigate the collateral damage? I truly don't know the answers here. I'm under the impression that they all detonated simultaneously, so I'm keen to infer that there was very little thought given to civilians unlucky enough to be in the vicinity. Man. Blasting off fingers and genitals is really something...
- dijit 2y agoWere they not hand-delivered to Hezbollah? All the information I have seen indicates that they were handed to Hezbollah and distributed by Hezbollah for the intent purpose of avoiding Israeli intelligence services.
- SenorKimchi 2y ago> Where is the line between war and terrorism ? Easy. When it is you or your allies committing an act, it is war and collateral damage. When it is someone else, it is terrorism. It is often a difficult topic to discuss because both sides tend to be in the wrong. It ends up being asymmetrical warfare. The stronger side accuses the weaker of hiding behind civilians while the weaker side accuses the stronger of human rights violations. As sad as this case is, I find it pretty interesting since it is clearly an extrajudicial act of violence carried out in a foreign land. The west will likely celebrate this, but I personally find this much worse than the Indian assassination that took place in Canada "recently" and didn't have significant collateral damage, yet the west was up in arms about.
- ada1981 2y agoExactly this >Easy. When it is you or your allies committing an act, it is war and collateral damage. When it is someone else, it is terrorism. < Terrorism is a statecraft term of art used as part of a propaganda campaign. Outside of that is a meaningless term.
- funnybeam 2y agoTerrorism is attacking civilian targets in order to create political pressure from fear. War is attacking military targets to reduce the enemy’s capability to wage war against you. Civilian target = terrorism Military target = war There absolutely are grey areas and overlap between the two but not nearly as much as people like to make out.
- harimau777 2y agoOverall I agree. However, the difficulty that I see is when someone attacks a, sometimes nominally, military target in a situation or method where it will unreasonably injure or kill civilians. Or even when the military target is mostly an excuse to target civilians. I think it can also get less clear when the target is an enemy's infrastructure, industry, or political infrastructure.
- 2y ago
- marcosdumay 2y agoIsrael has clearly steeped into terrorism and beyond before day 3 of this war.
- cbeach 2y agoIndiscriminate? I'd say the pager bombing was as /surgical/ as one could possibly be. A very sophisticated and targeted attack, putting tiny amounts of explosives in devices used by terrorist-linked individuals (ONLY Hezbollah were using the pagers because of their paranoia about Israeli monitoring of cellphones). An example of an /indiscriminate/ attack is Hezbollah's firing of unguided rockets into Israel's civilian areas. In July, for example, a Hezbollah rocket killed 12 children playing football in the Golan Heights. THAT is indiscriminate killing.