Comment by Cyph0n
4 days ago
> linked to Hezbollah's own military encrypted network, and triggered by a pager message encrypted to that network.
I am not sure where you’re getting this information from. For instance, you seem confident that this network used exclusively by the armed wing.
Regardless, absolutely none of this negates the fact that this was an indiscriminate terrorist attack.
If the sides were reversed, or if virtually any other state executed this kind of attack, it would be rightfully condemned. But Israel, as always, gets a pass. And it was indeed a brilliant plan, but only in how comically evil it was.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_Lebanon_electronic_device...
The most obvious citation is Reuters, which did a whole article on this, including the specific circumstances in which the pagers exchanged hands. And, whatever the rest of the moral circumstances of the strike may have been, the fact of the devices being combatant communication equipment does mean that it was neither indiscriminate (it was in fact very discriminate) nor terroristic (it had combatant targets, not civilians).
The attacks can still be immoral for a host of other reasons. Pearl Harbor was deeply immoral. It was also not an indiscriminate terrorist attack. Words mean things.
I have expanded in other comments in this same tree, but it was indiscriminate in timing, location, and possession (unless Israel individually verified possession).
If it were a “discriminate” attack as you claim, then we wouldn’t have seen thousands of civilians (non-combatants, Hezbollah affiliated or otherwise) being injured.
> Words mean things.
Small aside: not saying this applies to you specifically, but I have found that most people who use this adage (if you will) are quick to apply it to situations they don’t agree with, but become more flexible when it aligns with their interests.
The typical example I use is how Western politicians vehemently deny/denied usage of the term “genocide” or even “war crimes” for Gaza, but apply it liberally to Ukraine, even though the latter is objectively (by any metric) “less” of a genocide than Gaza is. Bernie Sanders only came around just a few months ago.
I don't love "words mean things" and winced after I typed it, but I think we both understand what I meant by it.
My contention is that we did not in fact see thousands of noncombatants injured. I went into some pretty serious depth on this point elsewhere on the thread.
I think, for what it's worth, that I can pretty easily make the argument that Ukraine is a genocide and Gaza is not. In fact, I could say that about the Al Aqsa Flood as well! That argument will annoy the shit out of you. But I'd say that's because you've affixed undeserved gravity or finality to the term "genocide", as a sort of "worst possible crime". What Israel is doing in Gaza can be as bad as what Russia is doing in Ukraine without establishing genocidal intent (which Russia pretty clearly does have).
I think the push to label the Gaza campaign as a "genocide" has been a fairly spectacular own goal on the part of western Palestinian rights activists. Unless the situation on the ground changes (I grant that it could), people are just going to keep shooting that claim down, and advocates for Palestinians will be stuck explaining instead of persuading, against relatively powerful countervailing arguments.
The case for ethnic cleansing, atrocities, and widespread war crimes is trivial to make. It's just not enough for online advocates; it's like they're trying to get an in-game trophy for the term "genocide".
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