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Lebanon’s health minister says 8 killed, 2,750 wounded by exploding pagers
(www.aljazeera.com)
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this post was submitted on 17 Sep 2024
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National order isnt based on tit for tat. If someone commits a war crime against you it doesnt mean you get to do it too.
In my opinion the time of day they chose to blow them shows they wanted as much collateral damage as they could.
What's the advantage of making excuses for committing war crimes?
At a certain point it stops being worth it. If sending a brainwashed 11 yo to blow up a checkpoint means you can no longer trust having any technology near you, your family and friends it might cause hesitation.
Wishful thinking, they aren't fighting because they want to. Noone likes violence.
Ah, you see it from Israel's POV. Interesting.
No I'm saying it won't stop the fighting because its not a choice they can make. Theres either negotiation or fighting but negotiation only works from equal footing. I don't like violence and war of course but its not the fault of the group with less bargaining power. The larger group needs to give up power willingly to fix anything. Russia to Ukraine, Israel to Palestine and Lebanon.
Is there any time of day it's not atrocious? Seems like any time would have basically equal risk for collateral casualties.
To be effective it all had to be at once. It seems that they waited until the pagers were being used to coordinate a fresh wave of rocket attacks with promises of more to come before setting them off.
Then maybe it shouldn't be done at all.
Maybe nobody should fight wars ever. Grow up.
Maybe all an army has to do to take over the entire world is bring their families to the front. Can't shoot back at them because their families are there. So they pretty much win every engagement. Problem solved. No more wars.
And you are saying noone is allowed to fight on their own land, as it endangers the public.
I wasn't trying to say that at all. Wars are fought where they are fought. It's up to whoever is in charge of the area to make sure they are evacuated.
The people in charge of the area in Gaza (Hamas) do the opposite, that's why they are designated as a terrorist organization and not legitimate government, such as the taliban in Afghanistan.
An illegitimate, criminal organization, that so willfully disregard the public welfare and trust, has no right to fight anywhere.
Let's dispel the bullshit idea that Hamas is fighting for the lives and rights of the Gazan people. If Hamas wants to have a state so bad, they should start by looking out for the interests of their own people instead of constantly leading them into worse suffering. Taking part in international terrorism and killing Jews is more important to the leadership of Gaza then is feeding their people and until it's not Gaza is irredenta.
Where would the people evacuate to? Why is it always assumed thats a valid option?
I'm not condoning violence but all of these better options people listed have been tried over and over, and Palestinians were dieing long before October 7th.
Look up how many palestinian children the IDF killed in 2023 prior to the attack.
Tell me what's the right answer when another group of people controls your life and kills your family members.
Israel has been just as if not more violent than Hamas, its bullshit to defend them. Defending themselves my ass, defenders don't steal land.
Because that time of day is when the most people will be out in public. It seems deliberately designed to cause as much damage as widely as possible. Likely to cause fear in the population.
They put explosives in the pagers but no shrapnel, so how does your conclusion make sense? If Israel wanted to simply cause mass damage, this would be a most incompetent way to do it.
They wanted to cause fear, which is terrorism.
Terrorism is illegitimate. Fear is only a small part of one definition of the term.
This was an attack by military on military. They were using the pagers to coordinate the rocket attacks against Israel that they e been launching lately.
Sorry I was being vague. Its an attack meant to cause terror in the civilian population as well. Its considered indiscriminate because while they knew who had the pagers at a point in time, when they did decide to blow them they couldnt know who would be hurt. In my opinion thats a line too far to cross.
It might also have to do with the fact that I consider people who are fighting in their own land to be both civilians and militants. Thats besides the actual civilians, if its even possible to live in some of these areas and truly avoid contact with "bad people".
I don't buy all this eye for an eye stuff going around, people are shit judges of themselves let alone other people.
Nobody in the military or foreign service world think this was indiscriminate. So you can make up your own definition of discrimination, but this was a highly targeted attack.
Proper discrimination is a question of the feasibility of treating protected persons as distinct from soldiers. Period. This attack did that by intercepting pagers marked for Hezzbollah, rather than pagers marked for general sale to the public. See the difference? The attack treated military targets as distinct from the general public. Therefore, nobody can say the attack was indiscriminate. That's just not what the word means.
If it was discriminate, was it proportionate? The 3,000 pagers were for 3,000 members of Hezzbollah, and specifically those members whose work could not be done in cell phones because of the secret military nature of the communications and Hezzbollah's fear that the cell networks were compromised. That's a very valuable target. Killing them would be a huge strategic advantage, especially in the midst of daily rocket attacks, being coordinated on the very pagers that were turned into weapons. The chance that some Hezzbollah member doesn't use the pager given to them by their employer, and instead gives it to some innocent person is minimal. The chance that someone standing nearby the person also gets hurt was very high. I think the strategic advantage clearly outweighs the risk. Virtually all 3,000.of the pagers were going to be in the hands of the people responsible for coordinating conducting the rocket attacks against Israel which are actually discriminate.
Further, it's the incidental civilian casualties that must be avoided, not the accidental ones. In other words, that a guided bomb may have a guidance malfunction and strike a civilian target does not ex ante make the attack indiscriminate. There was clearly going to be both come incidental civilian casualties and some accidental casualties. Incidental being the case where, for example the target is struck correctly but maybe was driving when the pager detonated, causing the car to crash into civilians. That's incidental. Accidental is the pager gets picked up by a kid instead of the Hezzbollah member that owns it. It was not feasible to limit those casualties, so the strategic advantage must be balanced. See how this logic works?
Here's a good article on the legal analysis that focuses on the order, and the logical sequence of the analysis. https://www.ejiltalk.org/a-lethal-misconception-in-gaza-and-beyond-disguising-indiscriminate-attacks-as-potentially-proportionate-in-discourses-on-the-laws-of-war/
The problem with doing the analysis out of order, is that if you do, you will find that all anyone has to do to win any war ever is bring their families to the front. Suppose your country is being invaded, and all the invading soldiers have their families with them. You agree that you can kill the soldiers and their families right?
That kind of gets back to your point about people being both civilians and fighters. That's not a thing. If you're a fighter, you're a fighter. If you're supporting fighters, you are also a fighter.
I guess I'd agree with you if the goal is just to kill your enemies, I just don't think thats possible. I don't know how this makes peace any easier, and whether legal and military experts find it indiscriminate or not, it will have a profound effect on the country as a whole.
It is a terrorist attack, if it happened here we would be talking about the thousands of people who had to witness it and how scared they were, and how noone will touch an electronic anymore out of fear. Even if they were only military people who were "targeted".
If this attack would lead to peace and a stop in violence and killing then I'd support it. But it doesnt. Israel has never had a proportionate or measured response, much like the US in its past conflicts.
Edit to clarify: you are likely right legally. I just disagree on other grounds.
I guess I'd agree with you if the goal is just to kill your enemies, I just don't think thats possible. I don't know how this makes peace any easier, and whether legal and military experts find it indiscriminate or not, it will have a profound effect on the country as a whole.
It is a terrorist attack, if it happened here we would be talking about the thousands of people who had to witness it and how scared they were, and how noone will touch an electronic anymore out of fear. Even if they were only military people who were "targeted".
If this attack would lead to peace and a stop in violence and killing then I'd support it. But it doesnt. Israel has never had a proportionate or measured response, much like the US in its past conflicts.