Comment by justin66
4 days ago
Interestingly just nine days ago someone here shared a link to the US's Law of War manual for military personnel. It's pretty good for what it is. Since countries base this stuff on the same international treaties they've all signed, it's a guide to Israel's conduct during war (or just about anyone's) as well as the US's.
https://media.defense.gov/2023/Jul/31/2003271432/-1/-1/0/DOD...
The question of whether what Israel did with the pagers was legal is not really controversial, or rather, it's not unclear what the law is. Find out the exciting answer in 6.12.4.8 Booby-Traps and Other Devices in the Form of Apparently Harmless Portable Objects Specifically Designed to Explode. (spoiler alert: of course what they did is illegal)
In case you were wondering what the big deal was the other day about the US bombing shipwrecked "narco terrorists" there's 7.3 RESPECT AND PROTECTION OF THE WOUNDED, SICK, AND SHIPWRECKED.
I have questions about the concept of legality in a war like the one between Hamas/Hezbollah and Israel. The idea that in a war there can be legal and illegal actions established by international treaties to protect civilians as much as possible can only work if two (or more) legitimate states are fighting each other, with leaders who can be held accountable for the orders they give. But does it still make sense to talk about legality and international treaties when on one side there is a terrorist organization whose method of warfare consists of kidnapping or killing civilians? At this point, doesn't complying to international treaties only mean further endangering their own population?
Important note: I don't want to spark a debate for or against Israel's actions, but simply to better understand the real sense of applying international treaties and conventions in a war like this.
Even if it were true, it sounds like an obvious loophole if one party could simply refuse to consider the other party a state and instantly get rid if all legal liability.
Which is actually one of the major issues of conflict with the Palestinians. The Palestinians want to be a state and most of the world considers them one. It's just that Israel and the US (together with other countries) don't and that the US also blocks official designation by the UN.
> The idea that in a war there can be legal and illegal actions established by international treaties to protect civilians as much as possible can only work if two (or more) legitimate states are fighting each other
This is not true (the laws of war work and have been applied successfully in conflicts not involving two or more legitimate states) and it's an assumption that seems to have negatively informed the questions that followed.
> with leaders who can be held accountable for the orders they give.
Holding leaders accountable ("legitimate" political leaders, terrorist leaders, rebel leaders, we can do it) is good, but we also hold individuals accountable.
> But does it still make sense to talk about legality and international treaties when on one side there is a terrorist organization whose method of warfare consists of kidnapping or killing civilians?
Of course it does. The notion that one side is no longer accountable for harm done to civilians in violation of the law because the other side has harmed civilians in violation of the law is wrong.
> At this point, doesn't complying to international treaties only mean further endangering their own population?
Sometimes yes. It certainly does put troops in danger often enough. Everyone who is party to these treaties is well aware that a country could be safer in a conflict if they just quickly incinerated the other side, and they've chosen to be bound by these laws anyway.
This operation was one of the most targeted military operations known in warfare. International law doesn't hold Hezbollah accountable for example. That is the reality today.
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Yes, humanitarian law explicitly applies to enemies who do not, themselves, follow it. It's called [non]-reciprocity:
"The obligation to respect and ensure respect for international humanitarian law does not depend on reciprocity"
https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/en/customary-ihl/v1/rule140
Nations who break international law frequently spread misconceptions about this.
My understanding is that this non-reciprocity is why international law often feels so permissive of seemingly bad actions. It generally aims to forbid only strategies that are the highly destructive and non-effective at winning wars. The idea is that such actions are not necessary in warfare in any circumstance, rather than a coordinated and mutual choice to leave effective strategies on the proverbial table.
This non-reciprocity is also why many such laws come with large conditional statements. For example, hospitals are typically illegal targets. However, you cannot label a military outpost a hospital as a loophole. There is a gray area in between, where the law is generally more permissive than a layperson might expect.
It is unclear if these laws accomplish this goal in all circumstances. A smaller, modern army attempting to hide might not be able to find non-civilian concealment (e.g., the jungle in the Vietnam war), and there is probably a conversation about the (unfortunate) effectiveness of inflecting civilian damage on an enemy's will to fight and economic output. However, the above is my best understanding of what international law sets out to do.
Disclaimer: I asked AI to evaluate the above comment before posting, and it made the following (paraphrased) criticisms that you might want to consider:
- The primary purpose of IHL (international humanitarian law) is to distinguish civilian from military, not to only ban what doesn't work. Hence, the banning of chemical weapons and landmines.
- The hospital example is better framed as a requirement to distinguish between a civilian hospital and a military target
- Non-reciprocity has the advantage of being simpler to obey (the legal analysis does not depend on the enemy's past actions)
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On the contrary, you have it completely backwards. Each time one side beaches the laws of war, more on the other side are motivated towards extremism. This cycle is why there is still war between Israel/Palestine after 74 years of fighting; both sides have continually committed atrocities, cementing the cycle of violence.
The Nazis tried the same argument at the Nuremberg trials. They claimed that they weren't bound by the laws of war (e.g., Hague regulations) since Poland and other states hadn't signed them. The court dismissed the argument and stated that certain rules are binding whether both parties are signatories or not. In Israel's case it is even worse since indiscriminate attacks have been outlawed since basically forever. At the Nuremberg trials, the argument "there is no precedent" had some merit, today it certainly does not.
How is it an indiscriminate attack? It targeted Hezbollah operatives, not random Lebanese people.
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Israel's entire mode of operations is to kidnap, kill and rape civilians. They even rioted for their right to rape prisoners to death.
Another really detailed analysis of what happened and the law-of-war implications was posted downthread:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46227273
Another legal analysis on the attack: https://opiniojuris.org/2024/10/15/is-it-cake-on-boobytrappe...
International law, as poorly enforced as it is, needs to have answers what to do with organizations that exist for the reason to destroy another country and that is financed through hostile nations. In this case Iran. Lebanon suffers as well here and Israel certainly isn't the main threat.
The Geneva convention doesn't apply to combatants in this case and you cannot be more targeted than this operation. You spoiler alter falls rather short on many accounts.
The truth is that the veneer of any international law is quite thin and you can pretty safely exist if you don't start aggression against another country. Any law that treats this differently isn't a law that serves justice.
> you cannot be more targeted than this operation
You've posted this in multiple places in this conversation, and it's just sort of strange. A sniper shooting a uniformed enemy is "targeted." A thousand little bombs that blow up a bunch of people including some civilians is... less targeted.
Because people repeat the wrong narrative of this being a somehow egregious strategy against an organization which exists to eradicate another nation.
This is just an easy sanity-check for a validity of a statement. Name an operation that is more targeted.
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> needs to have answers what to do with organizations that exist for the reason to destroy another country
Organizations...like Irgun?
Iran has existed for thousands of years....the Persian people's existence predates Judaism by hundreds of years. So how you equate Iran with being a state explicitly existing to destroy Israel, a state that is less than 100 years old, is beyond me. But don't let me get in the way of your narrative.
>Lebanon suffers as well here and Israel certainly isn't the main threat.
Out of all the major (and minor) actors in the theater of middle eastern geopolitics politics, only one nation has nuclear weapons. That nation also has a lot of nuclear weapons and isn't a signatory to the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty. That nation has also attacked US Warships. Another nation IS a signatory to said treaty and regularly allows international nuclear weapons inspectors into its enrichment facilities.
Note: fuck the Iranian regime they are religious nutjobs that are suffocating Iranians and have been for decades. I don't support ANY religious regime no matter where on earth it is.
Hezbollah exists to destroy Israel, not Iran. Iran current theological dictatorship just wants to see itself as leader of the Islamic world and uses Gazans as welcomed victims, just like Hamas. It famously fund terrorist activities like Hezbollah.
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What? Iran is a 2574 years old. Saying Iran exists to "destroy Israel" is absurd as your attitude to International law. Was Iran just sitting there planning how to destroy Israel for 2500 years? Enjoy WW3, because that's where that attitude will take you.
I was referring to organizations, in this case Hezbollah. The nation supporting terrorist activities is Iran.
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ICJ has made no such finding. They will probably making a ruling on genocide allegations in the coming years; they certain have not made one yet. The opinions they've issued so far are here https://www.icj-cij.org/decisions
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idk isn't pager operation the textbook example of "trying to avoid civilian deaths" while getting your job done?
why is it "genocide"? is becoming hezbollah determined at birth? is hezbollah a race? does average civilian use walkie-talkie?
even if hezbollah was a race, after its civilian attack on 2023 (beheading babies, raping and killing even foreigners), I wouldn't even care about what those guys get (also, don't say "humanity" like you represent the whole "humanity")
if you ARE talking about palestinian civilians, I don't think israel can do anything more gentlemen-ly to them other than pager-operation: the other option is carpet bombing and direct invasion (which is a completely another topic)
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screaming "genocide" like this has become a cliched thought terminating cliche.
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The northern settlements were largely evacuated and used by the IDF. The party to this conflict that systematically targets civilians is the state of Israel.
One could make the argument that the US and Israel committing genocide makes paramilitary action against them legal, since the US controls the UN security council through their veto power.
Right now Israel is an occupying power that systematically destroys civilian infrastructure and threatens an international force in Lebanon, making it permissible to fight back.
"The northern settlements were largely evacuated and used by the IDF."
This is a complete and utter lie. Hezbollah's missile attacks throughout 2024 led to the evacuation of over 60,000 Israeli residents from northern Israel.
Try to imagine the US response to Mexico shooting that many missiles at a US city.
"Israel is an occupying power"
Israel isn't occupying Lebanon but Hezbollah is.
" making it permissible to fight back."
This is exactly what Israel did so brilliantly with the pager attack.
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> Not a single person criticizing the pager bombs mention the reason for the operation.
I'd enter into a conversation like that assuming the other parties in the conversation were aware there was a war going on.