Comment by chii
> If this is terrorism, then we’re essentially saying any warfare is terrorism.
terrorism is primarily violence targeted at civilians, while legitimate acts of war targets military personnel (but could have civilians as collateral).
In this particular case, the pagers are targeted at non-civilian personnel, but has some civilian casualties.
Hezbollah rocket attacks, on the other hand, seems to be targeting civilians first, and military personels second (if they are accurate enough for such).
> terrorism is primarily violence targeted at civilians, while legitimate acts of war targets military personnel
States targeting civilians are a war crime. Not terrorism. The hijacking of Flight 77 was still terrorism despite targeting the Pentagon.
> the pagers are targeted at non-civilian personnel, but has some civilian casualties
That is war. That is collateral damage. Marking every military action with civilian casualties terrorism simply normalises terrorism as a legitimate war tactic.
I want to note that you are not wrong. There are many definitions of terrorism [1]. I’m just pushing back on this usage because it looks like the first step to normalising terrorism as something every power that has ever gone to war has done.
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Definition_of_terrorism